Make It Simple
In the Introduction, the author dumbs down the whole entire concept of genetics into an overly simplified, but easily understood metaphor. This line of comparison becomes the foundation by which the entire narrative will be fleshed out, analyzed, and explained. It is simple, but quite effective:
“Imagine that the genome is a book.
There are twenty-three chapters, called CHROMOSOMES.
Each chapter contains several thousand stories, called GENES.
Each story is made up of paragraphs, called EXONS, which are interrupted by advertisements called INTRONS. Each paragraph is made up of words, called COD ON s. Each word is written in letters called BASES.”
What Is a Genome?
That’s a good question. And without an easy enough, the text is going to be a hard slog. Fortunately, metaphor is a powerful tool for making complexity more easily understood and the author clearly realizes this. He turns to the comparative qualities afforded by similes and metaphor to put the big picture down on paper in big bold strokes. The details will come later.
“the human genome is nothing less than the instructions for how to build and run a human body.”
Genetic Predestination
Genes provide the evidence of evolution. Those whose genetic lineage is built upon those who managed to survive the Black Death and smallpox and thousands of other epidemics and pestilential attacks have evolutionary science to thank:
“The genome is a scripture in which is written the past history of plagues.”
Dopamine
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that assists in the facilitation of getting things done. Getting things done in integrally tied to an expectation of reward of some sort. It may be actual reward that brings pleasure or, alternatively, it may be a reward in the form of not bringing pain. What is basically being discussed here is the Big Mo, which is far more integrally connected to dopamine levels over which one has little control than laziness which it is assumed one can control:
“In other words, to simplify grossly, dopamine is perhaps the brain’s motivation chemical.”
Eugenics
The very word eugenics is enough to make anyone even slightly familiar with its meaning shiver in terror. Well, anyone with the genetic predisposition toward empathy. Eugenics is connected to genetics the way that Darth Vader is connected to the Force. It is:
“the dark side of genetics’ past, the black sheep of the genetics family — the murder, sterilization and abortion committed in the name of genetic purity.”
