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Genes are regions on the genome, now whether or not are translated by 3 (as codons) does not seem to be relevant. The quote is a criticism of a common way of t
by glofish 7y ago
Genes are regions on the genome, now whether or not are translated by 3 (as codons) does not seem to be relevant.
The quote is a criticism of a common way of thinking in biology, where many (if not most) practitioners think in terms "one gene does one thing" (or perhaps few things at most).
When one follows that mentality it becomes hard to explain how just 20K genes could make a living organism.
- Real_S 7y agoThe analogy I often use is houses. Think of all the components used to build a complete house. One can use the same bricks, wood, tile, etc, to build many different houses. But the location of these components in the house is not enough, the order in which they are added is critical. The genome must encode all the components used to make an organism, as well as the instructions on how and when to use these components.
- jacquesm 7y agoThe attempt to make analogies with biology from writing and computing will always fail. Biology is messy, lots of repeated use of the same data, circular references and other things that we find hard to interpret. It's as if starting on the second letter of a book instead of the first will give you a different story. The 'one gene, one thing' or just a few things at most meme died long ago for all biology practitioners that are with the times, the problem is more with IT people attempting to understand biology trying to make computing analogies to make sense of something that evolved rather than that it was designed.