In the age of big data, the prevailing idea is that more information leads to better answers. However, a new Canadian study shows that, in the quest for the distant ancestors of life, the accumulation of data can on the contrary distance scientists from reality.
Published in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,The results of the work of Miklós Csűrös, associate professor of computer science at the University of Montreal, reveal that current methods for reconstructing the genomes of ancient microbes are overwhelmed by the explosion of available information.
This paradox leads current models to “hallucinate” evolutionary events – in particular an implausibly high number of horizontal gene transfers – which are in fact only statistical mirages, the study indicates.
Miklós Csűrös highlights a breaking point in evolutionary biology: as scientists attempt to reconcile thousands of genetic sequences across the entire tree of life, the real evolutionary signal begins to fade away, replaced by mathematical noise.