Investigation is easiest by using differential examination or comparative analysis. By knowing where things are on the tree of life, the difference can be used to propel investigation.
Imagine it like this. NYC is not designed. Rather, it has grown organically over time, by many different agents sometimes working together and sometimes not. For example, 9/11 shaped the NYC of today, but no one designed that change and certainly no one in NYC was expecting it.
If you are investigating an old pipeline in NYC and its not recorded in the current plans or blueprints of the city, you can look back through time to the older states of the city, the older structures that no longer exist and possibly find insight into the undocumented pipeline you are looking at.
Genetics is like that. For example, you can learn about reproduction by observing that the platypus is our most distantly related mammal. It doesn't have the genes for a placenta, or nipples, but it does have genes for lactation and its egg yolk genes still work which is why it can lay eggs.
No comments:
Post a Comment