Image by Getty / FuturismSince the human genome was first sequenced, popular science has indicated that genes serve as a blueprint for life. However, experts are now arguing that the reality is much more intricate and captivating. In a new book titled “How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology,” British science writer and author Phillip Ball points out that the modern view of genes as rigid components in the mechanism of life does not align with the insights geneticists have gained over the years. Life is regarded as a puzzling mystery and its genetics as enigmatic and chaotic instruments.
In a review of the book published by the journal Nature, where Ball happens to be a well-established editor, distinguished British biologist Denis Noble quoted his colleague as saying that likening life to a machine is a “simplistic metaphor.” Instead, as both writers assert, there is a considerable degree of “fuzziness and imprecision” in the functioning of genes. For example, scientists now believe that up to 70 percent of protein domains, or the sequences of amino acids on the rungs of DNA, could be disordered, meaning they perform in diverse and unexpected ways that often baffle even experienced scientists.
This disorderliness makes proteins “adaptable communicators,” Ball maintains — but it also renders them difficult to categorize within the binary mentality that genes are a “blueprint” for life. In a significant instance, Noble pointed out that there are nearly 300 genes indicating a susceptibility to schizophrenia, which challenges the oversimplified notion of genetic risk for mental illness. This introduces the age-old debate of nature versus nurture, but with a twist: factors ranging from maternal diet to the presence of significant pollution in one’s environment act as environmental risk factors for the disorder, demonstrating that gene expression is not a fixed process.
Both Ball and Noble argue that perceptions of biology do not need a complete overhaul. Instead, scientists must help the public realize that genes are not purely one thing or the other, but are constantly evolving elements of what makes life so captivating. Ultimately, as Noble quotes Ball, “we are at the beginning of a profound reassessment of how life operates.” More on changing perceptions: 23andMe Has Lost Billions, Almost Worthless Now
