Since the successful sequencing of the human genome, people generally believe that genes are the blueprint of life; but experts now believe that reality is much more complicated and more beautiful.
British popular science writer Phillip Ball (How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology “was written in a new book called” How Life Works: A User’s Guide.The unrepaired gear in the machine, and this modern concept is actually not consistent with the cognition that genetics have studied for many years: life is a complicated mystery. Coding its gene is the mysterious and chaotic tool of this mystery.
In the comment published by the Nature magazine, British biologist Denis Nobel cited his scientific writer colleagues, saying that the concept of life comparing life as a machine is a “lazysimile”.The author Powell, the author of the new book, happened to be the long -term editor of “Nature” magazine.
Instead, as the two authors assert, there are many “fuzzy and inaccurate” working methods of genes.For example, scientists now believe that as many as 70%of the protein world may be disorderly, which means that they play a role in a diverse and surprising way, and they are often difficult to overwhelmed by scientists.The basic component of protein also constitutes the ladder of DNA dual spiral mechanism.
Powell insisted that this disorderly makes protein a “multi -functional communication”, but it also makes it elusive in the non -black -and -white thinking mode such as the “blueprint” of life as a life “blueprint”.
Nobul gave an example: there are nearly 300 genes in the human body related to the risk of schizophrenia, which can’t help but doubt whether mental illness is really related to the simplified concept of genetic risks.Therefore, people will return to Nature Versus Nurture Arguments, that is, whether it is congenital conditions or the acquired environment leads to mental illness.From the diet of the mother to whether to live in areas with severe pollution, these are environmental risk factors that lead to schizophrenia. You start to see that gene expression is not a simple and rude switch.
Both writers believe that they do not need to fundamentally change their views on biology.On the contrary, scientists need to help the public understand that genes are not the concept of “this is the other”, but a part of the unpredictable life.
