Molecules as more than markers

Genetics has numerous uses. There are some biologists for whom genetics implies very specific chemical and physical properties of a particular flavor of DNA molecule. Consider a scientist focused on the biophysical properties of zinc finger proteins and the ZYF gene. Then there are biologists for whom genetics is a more abstract and evolutionary enterprise. David Haig and the late W. D. Hamilton fall into this class of thinkers. This is a way of looking at genetics as the scaffold or currency of evolutionary process. Finally, there are those for whom genes are simply discrete convenient markers to trace out historical and spatial patterns. The field of molecular ecology describes this attitude, though the application of phylogenetic techniques from the life sciences in linguistics illustrates the generality of these methodologies. A new paper in PNAS, Biophysical mechanisms for large-effect mutations in the evolution of steroid hormone receptors, is neat because ...