Re:Have We Drawn the Wrong Lessons from Epigenetics?
by TeMPOraL on Friday February 27, 2015 @11:51PM
(#9122830)
DNA is data. A blueprint. But new organisms aren't made in a factory, they're made by other organisms, which were made by other organisms, etc. So when environmental factors affect which parts of the blueprint are used in construction of descendant organisms (and we know they can), those organisms can be different even though they share the same blueprint. Think of it as data implicit in code execution state, as children literally fork off the parent process and continue their lives.
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Re:Have We Drawn the Wrong Lessons from Epigenetics?
by RockyMcNuts on Saturday February 28, 2015 @09:18AM
(#9123709)
Makes sense...what I don't really get is how that means 'heritability' other than through DNA.
Seems to me DNA is kind of like a recipe for beer, and on a humid day the beer comes out a little different with the same recipe. But if you go back to the original weather the beer will come out the same.
So if you sent a Dutch couple of today back in time to the diet and environment of 50 years ago, their kids would be the height Dutchmen would have been 50 years ago, since the DNA and environment are the same. Nothing else changed inside the Dutch that would make their kids taller, and the change in height isn't something that is 'heritable' through other than DNA.