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> According to the gene shortage argument, genes can’t be very important to the birth of the mind because the genome contains only about 30,000 genes, simply to
by Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
> According to the gene shortage argument, genes can’t be very important to the birth of the mind because the genome contains only about 30,000 genes, simply too few to account even for the brain’s complexity—with its billions of cells and tens of billions of connections between neurons—much less the mind’s. “Given that ratio,” Ehrlich suggested, “it would be quite a trick for genes typically to control more than the most general aspects of human behavior.”
Yes, even regardless of other examples you have provided, that's just basically bad poor logic in the article? Why would anyone assume that the number of connections of neurons would need to linearly relate to the number of genes describing them? What if a couple of genes describe a process that is then repeated for a billion times during development?
- jhedwards 7y agoThe article presents this idea specifically because it is incorrect, and goes on to explain the newer, more accurate understanding of genes, which is (as far as I understand it) that they encode various options and patterns that can be leveraged by the organism in different situations, not a rigid plan to be executed by the cells.
- asdaddasdad 7y agoI don't understand why that is supposed to be a "new understanding". I think it was the understanding all along (or at least most of the time). Isn't even the famous moth that changed color in the early days of the industrial evolution an example? I think it carries both genes (for black and white expression), and they get triggered depending on the environment during development. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution I could be wrong about the moth, but certainly, genes that are only expressed depending on environment are common knowledge.