The-more-the-better and the-less-the-better

To many biologists, geneticists and bioinformaticians, the excitementof genomics comes from systematic analyses of large amountsof information, such as complete end-to-end DNA sequences, denselypacked genetic markers on chromosomes, and sometimes, comprehensivepopulation genetics history in places like Iceland and Finlandwhere extensive genealogical data are available. Also, realizingthe importance of sample sizes in mapping susceptibility genesin complex and common diseases, various national and internationalconsortiums were established, and meta analyses were frequentlyin use on pooled data. Almost everybody agrees that ‘themore (information), the better’. There are two senses in the word ‘more’ used here.One concerns the search space, and another concerns the samplesize. It is easy to understand why one would like to see