Feb 13, 2024 11:41 PM
(This post was last modified: Feb 13, 2024 11:48 PM by C C.)
It’s time to admit that genes are not the blueprint for life
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00327-x
INTRO (Denis Noble): For too long, scientists have been content in espousing the lazy metaphor of living systems operating simply like machines, says science writer Philip Ball in How Life Works. Yet, it’s important to be open about the complexity of biology — including what we don’t know — because public understanding affects policy, health care and trust in science. “So long as we insist that cells are computers and genes are their code,” writes Ball, life might as well be “sprinkled with invisible magic”. But, reality “is far more interesting and wonderful”, as he explains in this must-read user’s guide for biologists and non-biologists alike.
When the human genome was sequenced in 2001, many thought that it would prove to be an ‘instruction manual’ for life. But the genome turned out to be no blueprint. In fact, most genes don’t have a pre-set function that can be determined from their DNA sequence.
Instead, genes’ activity — whether they are expressed or not, for instance, or the length of protein that they encode — depends on myriad external factors, from the diet to the environment in which the organism develops. And each trait can be influenced by many genes. For example, mutations in almost 300 genes have been identified as indicating a risk that a person will develop schizophrenia...(MORE - details)
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Yet another misguided attempt to revise evolution
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/02/1...evolution/
EXCERPTS (Jerry Coyne): What we have below (click on headline for free access) is a review in Nature by Denis Noble of a new book by Philip Ball, How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology, which has garnered good reviews and is currently #1 in rankings of books on developmental biology.
[...] In some ways it’s unfortunate that Noble was chosen as a reviewer, as the man, while having a sterling reputation in physiology and systems biology, is largely ignorant of neo-Darwinism, and yet has spent a lot of the last decade trying to claim that neo-Darwinism is grossly inadequate to explain the features and evolutionary changes of organisms. You can see all my critiques of Noble here, but I’ll just quote briefly from the latest to give you a flavor of how he attacks modern evolutionary theory...
[...] I then assessed each claim in order... (MORE - missing details)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00327-x
INTRO (Denis Noble): For too long, scientists have been content in espousing the lazy metaphor of living systems operating simply like machines, says science writer Philip Ball in How Life Works. Yet, it’s important to be open about the complexity of biology — including what we don’t know — because public understanding affects policy, health care and trust in science. “So long as we insist that cells are computers and genes are their code,” writes Ball, life might as well be “sprinkled with invisible magic”. But, reality “is far more interesting and wonderful”, as he explains in this must-read user’s guide for biologists and non-biologists alike.
When the human genome was sequenced in 2001, many thought that it would prove to be an ‘instruction manual’ for life. But the genome turned out to be no blueprint. In fact, most genes don’t have a pre-set function that can be determined from their DNA sequence.
Instead, genes’ activity — whether they are expressed or not, for instance, or the length of protein that they encode — depends on myriad external factors, from the diet to the environment in which the organism develops. And each trait can be influenced by many genes. For example, mutations in almost 300 genes have been identified as indicating a risk that a person will develop schizophrenia...(MORE - details)
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Yet another misguided attempt to revise evolution
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/02/1...evolution/
EXCERPTS (Jerry Coyne): What we have below (click on headline for free access) is a review in Nature by Denis Noble of a new book by Philip Ball, How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology, which has garnered good reviews and is currently #1 in rankings of books on developmental biology.
[...] In some ways it’s unfortunate that Noble was chosen as a reviewer, as the man, while having a sterling reputation in physiology and systems biology, is largely ignorant of neo-Darwinism, and yet has spent a lot of the last decade trying to claim that neo-Darwinism is grossly inadequate to explain the features and evolutionary changes of organisms. You can see all my critiques of Noble here, but I’ll just quote briefly from the latest to give you a flavor of how he attacks modern evolutionary theory...
[...] I then assessed each claim in order... (MORE - missing details)