The real logic behind genetics was first discovered, oddly enough, by a monk and his pea plants in the s, just as Darwin was preparing On the Origin of Species. This happens because you get two copies of each gene, one from your mother and another from your father.
DNA isn't actually this colorful in your body, unless you're like a Muppet or clown or something. No one gave a hoot about his work. Soon scientists had figured out that it was DNA that held the information that gives you your many traits, and in Watson, Crick, and colleagues finally gave it a shape: the famous double helix.
We now know that inheriting traits has nothing to do with gemmules mixing together. We of course get our DNA, which contains genes, from both our mother and father.
But these are combined in unique ways at each conception , leading to variations even among siblings. So these mutations, combined with genetic shuffling at birth, drive variations and therefore evolution: Some individuals are born with traits that may suit them better to their environment, which boosts their chances of surviving and breeding and passing those genes to future generations.
And isn't it at least a little bit comforting to be reminded that even the greatest minds in history can muck things up? Both raise important questions, both make provocative arguments deserving of serious consideration, and both neglect important work in philosophy and science, to their own detriment.
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How does evolution add information to a genome to create progressively more complicated organisms? How is evolution able to bring about drastic changes so quickly?
How could the first living cell arise spontaneously to get evolution started? Cite This! Print Citation. Try Our Crossword Puzzle! What Is the Missing Number? Every cell in the human body contains, for instance, little mechanisms that help package energy. Those are called mitochondria. We now realize that those mitochondria are the descendants of captured bacteria that were either swallowed by, or infected, the cells that became complex cells of all animals and plants.
Likewise, 8 percent of the human genome, we now know, is viral DNA, which has come into our lineage by infection over the last million years or so. Some of that viral DNA is still functioning as genes that are important for human life and reproduction. CRISPR is an acronym for a gene-editing tool discovered in the last years that is very powerful and inexpensive. With it, scientists can now edit genomes, delete mutations or insert sections of new genes.
It promises a lot of wonderful medical possibilities and a lot of really troubling moral and societal choices. But how far does it go? Does it go to the point where wealthy people will be able to choose designer children, whose genomes have been edited to make them smarter or stronger?
These are, to put it mildly, really difficult ethical propositions. But it is something that has always existed in nature. Microbes were using CRISPR to protect themselves and to edit their own genomes before it was ever discovered and put to use in a laboratory by some really brainy humans.
Simon Worrall curates Book Talk. Follow him on Twitter or at simonworrallauthor. All rights reserved. Your book opens with Charles Darwin making a little sketch in a notebook.
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