***** Vol.3 Chap.7 Mutation is the key *****

For an entire week, Frank could not shake off the questions that were buzzing in his brain. So, at the following team meeting, he attempted to solicit responses to his doubts. As he announced a week ago about Mark joining the team, the four were huddled in Frank’s office.

“Margaret, JB. Before I begin, I just want to welcome Mark to the team,” said Frank.

“Mark, you may have already met Dr. Margaret Tomash from the Department of Genetics and, of course, you know JB here.”

“Hello, Dr. Tomash. Pleased to meet you. Hi JB, good to be working together.”

“OK, now that we are done with the formalities, Mark, we initiate our new member by posing challenging questions for answers. So today, we will repeat our tradition.” Frank began.

“I know you worked with artificial creatures and not with real human DNA. Fine. Here is the question. JB had a generative AI model using most of the DNA sequence to predict violent behaviors exhibited by individuals. We know the DNA sequence of offsprings are formed by combining the male half with the female half during fertilization. Occasionally, an unacceptable pairing occurs. We call this a mismatch. The resultant behavior became unpredictable…”

“That is mutation,” interjected Mark excitedly. “We call this mutation.”

“Interesting,” remarked Margaret.

“I knew that,” said JB coldly.

“What is mutation?” asked Frank.

“In my program, acquired traits are passed on from one generation to another generation. Since the computer is exact, the passing on of genetic information is also exact so that all offspring will have the same traits as the parents. To implement the influence of mutation, I randomly change bits in the computer structure that contain the information passed from the parent to the offspring, thus introducing a random element into the offspring.”

What was said piqued Frank’s interest.

Marck continued, “So, what you told me sounds very much like mutation to me. The difference is that in my case, the mutation is non-specific with no respect to location and relationship to the parents.”

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Being the new kid on the block, Mark was tense and tried to answer Frank as scientifically as possible in an as-a-matter-of-fact manner.

“Well, maybe mutation is too strong a word,” responded Margaret. “I can’t fathom that there is mutation on such a grand scale in each generation.”

“But then what Mark said surely explains what is happening here.” JB accepted the notion of mutation readily.

“If we are talking about mutation in terms of random changes, then we are seeing random changes here. If we are talking about mutation in terms of evolution on a grand scale, then perhaps what we are observing here is too miniscule to explain the grand changes.” Frank was trying to be very diplomatic.

In truth, he was ambivalent about the idea. While the idea of mutation intrigued him, the idea seemed to have merit in that it seemed to explain the data. However, to accept outright that there were mutations involved all over the DNA chromosome, he found this hard to swallow.

“The idea pans out for my artificial creatures,” Mark sensed the hesitation and hedged slightly. “Whether that is the case for actual creatures, I cannot say.”

“Ah, you are learning fast, Mark,” said Frank.

You will turn out fine. He told himself.

“That is true. How do we know that this happens in real life, even though it seems to work for artificial creatures?” Margaret said with unbelief.

“If the idea explains the data, then the notion must be right. I can’t come up with any other explanations.” JB, as impulsive and one-tracked minded as she was, responded immediately.

“That we cannot find another explanation does not mean that this explanation is correct.” Frank tried to mitigate the situation here.

“Occam’s razor!” JB retorted.

“May be,” Frank responded.

“Since you are giving a presentation next month in the Annual Meeting of the American Science (AMAS), the best test of our hypothesis is to present the idea and see what the scientific community feels about it.” JB suggested.

“I am not sure I am ready to release this yet.”

“We are ready. We have all the data here, and we have all the explanations here. It is time to tell the world about our discovery.”

“Somehow, I am not sure about the explanations yet.”

“That is why presenting to AMAS is the perfect time and the perfect meeting to try out the discovery on the scientific community.” JB can be very persuasive.

“I’m not sure I am ready to accept the ideas we have been discussing here yet.”

“We are not claiming this is true. We are only presenting the results to the scientific community.”

“Are we sure that we are on the right track?”

“The data don’t lie.”

“What do you think, Margaret?”

“Well, JB has a point there.” There is no help from her.

“I still feel uncomfortable about the results. Are we missing anything here?”

“If the data comes from my artificial creatures, then I have no problem in presenting the data,” Mark joined in the persuasion.

“OK, if you all feel so strongly about this, I will present the results at the AMAS next month. Good job, guys.” Frank reluctantly accepted the task.

“But before I go, I would like to be one hundred percent sure about the results. Margaret, can you double check the literature again? JB, can you randomize the samples three more times and tried the program on the new training and testing data again? Mark, I want to know more about your program.”

“Shall we meet again next week?” He concluded the meeting.

“OK.”

“Will do.”