The view of biology often presented to the public is oversimplified and out of date. Scientists must set the record straight, argues a new book.

Review of 2023 book: How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology Philip Ball. ISBN9781529095999

  • stoneparchment@possumpat.io
    2·
    9 months ago

    This is a funny comment though, because “junk” DNA is involved with epigenetic regulation and cellular behavior.

    “It’s there so it must have function”, “it’s still in the genetic code so it must have been selected for” is the least nuanced take,

    “It’s there just randomly and therefore is junk”, and “evolution does not select for efficiency” is an improvement,

    But “it’s there and it’s doing something despite not having a bespoke, prescribed function” and “evolution is a cascade of emergent effects and random chance, none of our genome is non-functional even though it is random” is the most up to date take

    You seem like a biologist, why not go read some of these papers? Like the one I linked by Dan Nichols? Most people don’t have the background necessary to understand the language (no shade) but you seem to!