Reddit reviews The Origins of Genome Architecture

Mechanisms? You're talking about selection, mutation, genetic drift, gene expression/regulatory evolution, chromosomal inversions/deletions/translocations, TE activity, gene duplication, chromosomal duplication, codon bias, and more. The field is massively broad and encompasses everything from population genetics, to molecular biology, to genomics, to phylogenetics/molecular evolution.

I'm a evolutionary genetics PhD, and there's no review broad enough to cover it all. Maybe narrow it down a bit? Popular(ish) science books may be the thing you're looking for.

For example, this book by Michael Lynch would be a good start. He loves to look at the big picture stuff and tends towards comparative evolutionary genomics. For the soap-opera-like beginnings to population genetics (which really is the central theoretical core of evolutionary genetics), this book by William Provine is an entertaining and enlightening read.

Edit: Gene duplication is a favourite of mine: These authors are good for this review article. I haven't read it myself yet (I'm at home and cannot access it) but if it's published in Nature Reviews Genetics then it's probably very high quality.

Google Scholar is your friend. Search for "gene duplication review" and narrow by year to include more up-to-date. You can use the keywords at the start of my post to get searching.

I'm a second-year grad student in genetics/genomics, and these are the resources I go to for those oh-crap-I've-never-had-that-class moments:

This may be more than you want to spend (~$70), but Lynch has a really good book that details many of genomic elements and how they may have evolved. He assumes the reader generally understands transcription/translation, but the book isn't too technical.

If you have access from a company or university, Nature Reviews Genetics has reviews aimed at general scientific audiences for just about anything genetics/genomics related.

And, honestly, most Wikipedia pages for these kinds of topics have pretty reliable information as a first pass.

> Every single living organism at their base level requires 3 things to live, DNA, RNA and Proteins, all of which are co-dependant on one another for existence (DNA needs RNA & Proteins to feed it, RNA needs DNA & Proteins to form it and Proteins needs DNA to form RNA to create it) and if even for a split-second they would cease to exist, and they probability of them to randomly form at the EXACT same time is, at best, in the TRILLIONS

This is an ill informed understanding of the central dogma and conflating it with de novo origin of life. I have absolutely no idea what your point is here other than conflating a bunch of scientific words together. Please clarify with links to the primary literature.

This wikipedia article is equivalent to what you would read in a high school level biology text about the central dogma. Otherwise, I have absolutley no clue what your point is here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_dogma_of_molecular_biology

> And the 2 mains factors in Genetic Mutation are "Point Mutation" and "Gene Duplication"; these can certainly account for Micro-Evolution, the changes one would experience that are minor and can even be achieved in one's lifetime, however studies into Micro-Evolution have revealed that this can NOT progress into Macro-Evolution, the change from one species into another, because of TWO things;
> 1) There is no guarantee that the mutation would be passed on or even continue to develop
> &
> 2) If the mutation was the result of some sort of outside factor, then a soon as it is no longer in play, the mutation near 100% of the time everses, disappearing altogether in the span of a few generations.

Wrong. This book here is a good primer on genome/gene evolution.

https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Genome-Architecture-Michael-Lynch/dp/0878934847

Please read it, and its references to the primary literature. Note that this text is just a primer. However, You are 100% wrong in your understanding of gene/genome evolution. It isn't my job to educate you, please read this book educate yourself and come back when you know something.

> Also even if that wasn't the case and a new species was born, unless they had a sibling of the opposite gender then if would die out with them because the DEFINING trait of a species is that it can't reproduce with another species, that's why even though dog come in a large variety they're STILL the same species, because they can have kids with one another, meanwhile Chimps and Humans can't, thus different species.

Wrong again. You do not appear to understand what a species concept is. Queller discusses this in detail and in terms of sociality.

A good place to start, but this is not all inclusive of species concept discussion.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781869/

> Also unless they we're born with mutation, a female could NEVER pass it on, because their reproductive cells are never replaced as they age, also if the half of a parents genetic code doesn't posses the mutation their child WON'T inherit it. with this it is also argued that the mere existence of TWO genders disproves Evolution, because the chances of a mutation that gives birth to creature that needs another to reproduce happening and another mutation happening around the same time that needs to mate with the first creature to reproduce is ASTRONOMICALLY HIGH.

Wrong again. You are applying population genetics to the individual. This is grossly misinformed.

This is a quick primer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_genetics

Again, this is a very pedestrian article since it is wikipedia.

Until you have read https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Population-Genetics-Daniel-Hartl/dp/0878933085 you really should refrain from any discussion of population genetics, not to mention the volumous works of others this cites and have been built on these model.

> If you want visible proof then just look at humans and dogs, humans are everywhere on Earth, in various different environments and have had significant time for mutations to occur, however the biggest change was in skin colour and NO NEW SPECIES EMERGED, we're all still human. And with dogs, humans forced mutations to occur in them for over 100 years, thus if anything was going to scientifically replicate Marco-Evolution it was that, however instead of new species being born, the most we got was Inbred Monstrosities suffering from complete Genetic Failure AND THEY WERE ALL STILL DOGS

Again, you do not understand population genetics. This is completely wrong. As long as populuations are mixing, speciation is not possible. Again, see the Hartl book amongst many others. Heck, even Campbell's biology addresses exactly this point (a high school/freshmen biology text).

> Plus there's also the existence of Sequential Hermaphrodites, species with the ability to change gender, there is no scientific explanation for how they got this ability. And if you ask yourself HOW did they evolve that ability, an ability to rearrange their entire biology: Over millions of years? Since that ability is generally used to compensate for a missing gender, the species would die out long before that happened. And if you can't say a giant leap over at most a few generations or else you as well expect someone to just give birth to a baby that can shoo laser beams out of it's eyes.

Ok, so now we are talking about sex evolution? Obviously you haven't read this article, amongst many others it cites and have cited it.

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0960982206016198?via=sd

Again, you are both wrong and do not understand.

> And there's also Crocodiles to consider, they've been around for 200 million years, longer than the dinosaurs, survived multiple Mass Extinction Events, and the only change they've gone through is becoming smaller, or the Coelacanth an ancient species of fish that first appeared 400 million years ago and was though to be extinct yet was discovered to be alive and unchanged from 400 million yrs ago. And you can't just say it's because they didn't need to because something any Evolutionist will point out is: "Evolution. IS. CONSTANT." If macro-evolution was real then regardless of whether they needed to or not, they would of evolved into new species. If it didn't work that way then we would still have Dinosaurs around unchanged from 75 million years ago, at least the aquatic ones anyway. The reason I used dinosaurs as my example is because they are extremely similar to crocodiles, thus if they nature of the planet changed so they couldn't survive, then neither could crocodiles.

Ok, here you have really exposed the fact that you do not understand population genetics. You really need to read biology by Campbell. Again, a highschool/freshmen level biology textbook. This is factually incorrect.

Crocodiles found their niche and survived. Dinosaurs did actually survive - they are modern day birds. Shockingly, they look different now because they evolved into new species. So it would seem that your best example (dinosaurs) is also factually incorrect.

Here is a recent paper among thousands http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001854 that says you are factually wrong.

> Also Evolution wasn't popularised by the Scientific Community, but by Atheists who keep pushing it to be taught in schools and push and teaching of religion out, such as the British Humanist Association an atheist group trying to get school kids to learn evolution with stories about dying due to not been good enough when change comes.

Again, factually incorrect. Darwin himself was religious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin

Pope Francis must also be an atheist.

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/10/28/pope-francis-comments-on-evolution-and-the-catholic-church

> Also forget not that just because a lot of scientists say something is fact doesn't mean it's true, cause over 100 years ago scientists said that going 40 mph would cause ones lungs to collapse and it has been repeatedly revealed that some scientists will lie for the sake of money or reputation and can even make outrageous claims due to perusing a crazy obsession. Evolution could very well be a "Cash Cow" for the Scientific Community because they don't tell us how much funding they receive for each field of research, the closest we got was when in 2011 the magazine Scientific American revealed that the over half of its funds go to a vaguely named field "LIFE" and even if we assume that 75% of that goes to medicine that would still make Evolution the 3rd highest funded Field of Research for scientists.

What? See above, now you are just getting looney.

I don't know of many scientists that are "getting rich" off science, especially evolutionary biologists. Please cite examples of evolutionary biologists as a population getting rich. I would like to know the mean and standard deviation of how rich evolutionary biologists are as a population. If you cannot produce this number, please retract this statement.

Ernst Mayer, Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins have written some decent books broadly covering the evidence for evolution. Donald Prothero's Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters fits into that general category, and does a good job of outlining the evidence for evolution as well, in particular from a paleontological perspective.




Astrobiologist / Paleontologist Peter Ward has written a ton of fantastic books. I'd start with Rare Earth, which outlines the Rare Earth hypothesis, ie complex life is likely rare in the universe. If you read Rare Earth, you'll come away with a better understanding of the abiotic factors which influence the evolution of life on Earth. If you end up enjoying Rare Earth, I'd highly recommend Ward's other books.




Terra, by paleontologist Michael Novacek describes the evolution of the modern biosphere, in particular from the Cretaceous onwards, and then discusses environmental change on a geological scale to modern environmental challenges facing humanity. It's one of those books which will change the way you think about the modern biosphere, and the evolution in the context ecosystems, as opposed to individual species.




Another book by a paleontologist is When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time, looking at the Permian mass extinction, which was the most catastrophic mass extinction of the Phanerozoic wiping out 95%+ of all species. More focused on the geology than the other books I mentioned, so if you're not into geology you probably wont enjoy it so much.



Biochemist Nick Lane has written some great books. Life ascending would be a good one to start off with. Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life is really excellent as well.




The Origins of Life and the Universe is written by molecular biologist Paul Lurquin. It mostly focuses on the origin of life. It's pretty accessible for what it covers.




Another couple of books I would recommend to people looking for something more advanced are: Michael Lynch's Origins of Genome Architecture, which covers similar stuff to much of his research, although takes a much broader perspective. Genes in conflict is a pretty comprehensive treatment of selfish genetic elements. Fascinating read, although probably a bit heavy for most laypeople.