When you are looking a gene map, you are looking at a template for
making an individual that has been copied, (added to and slightly
rearranged and altered) from every individual ancestor from which it
has descended? So it seems that across species, genera and families
of organisms, the groups of genes that do something which helps the
individual pass those genes would have a common look and function
across the broad spectrum of creatures they create? These are
questions? :-)

Have a group of genes been found in plants that are only found in
plants which produce flowers? Have a group of genes been found in
orchids that are not found in any other flowering plants? Wouldn't
such a finding indicate that the gene group is responsible for
something that happens in flowering plants but not in other plants, or
in orchids but not in other flowering plants?

How do they find genes? Is it possible (yet) for a trained
botanist/geneticist to look at a bunch of genes and tell if it is a
gymnosperm or an angiosperm? That identifying structure he/she is
looking for being a thing common to all angiosperms but that is not
present in gymnosperms?

Did the flowering organ in plants develop in many different unrelated
species of non-flowering plants, and therefore maybe be relatively
uneasy to compare and identify in other flowering plant's genes?

I am sure gene groups that do the same thing in different animals are
moved all over the place in the various species they construct and may
not even stay together on the same chromosome even if they perform the
same function, so it follows that the relatedness of species and
individuals has something to do with where known gene groups are
located in the templates when compared to each other?

I would guess that the genes of plants would travel through time and
species the same way they travel through the genes of the animal
kingdom. A group of genes that performs a specific function in any
organism descended from a previous ancestor would be found in some
form in all species that, like the hox box gene that determines the
development of appendages in fetus. Can genes that 'make a flower' or
"make a fused reproductive organ called a column" be located by
comparing and contrasting genes from many species?

I think there is a common question in all of these questions. There
certainly seems to be a set of assumptions which I do not even know to
be correct.

I am genetically incapable of writing tight concise short sentences.
The same gene responsible for this behavioral trait is what makes
my... well, never mind...

Al






Rob Halgren wrote in message ...


Take your time to assimilate. We'll still be here and happy to help. But
please don't slander yourself again like that. It is NOT futile. Way back,
many many years ago, when I was teaching, I would rebuke any student who
made such a remark, encouraging them to have more confidence. You can learn
and understand anything you wish, if you are honestly trying. If, in such a
circumstance, you don't understand something I have said, the fault is mine;
not yours.



That is my philosophy too. Glad to see there are other people who
actually care about teaching out there. If you didn't understand me, it
was because I didn't use the right words. There are exceptions for
people who just don't listen, but you can't teach them anything they
don't already know anyway.

Rob