![]() ![]() Without epigenetics, I would be typing this as an undifferentiated blob of identical cells like a slime mold swarm. A cell in my bone marrow producing blood, a cell in my liver and a skin cell bear minimal resemblance to one another and yet each is built according to the instructions in that single universal manual unique to me… and their differentiation is largely a product of that flutter of post-it notes leafed throughout said instruction manual. It is one of the ways that the invariant DNA code manages to generate the nearly infinite structural and cellular diversity seen within every complex organism on this planet. Let’s inventory epigenetics’ actual reach and influence you can arrive at your own conclusions about whether it is plausibly, as headlines often claim, the transmission mechanism for such phenomena in humans as “intergenerational trauma.”Įpigenetics encompasses the molecular mechanisms that determine how relevant sections of DNA’s single universal instruction manual are interpreted and applied uniquely in each specialized cell, as specific pages of the manual are consulted (or not) according to each cell’s role in your body. Epigenetics is a powerful and ubiquitous process in biology but entails no mechanism equipped to explain any of the multi-generational psychological phenomena it’s called upon to legitimize in media coverage, claims about which are both reliably overblown and entirely speculative. ![]() The details of your star chart might be precisely correct, yet I don’t have to tell you that no astronomer seriously ascribes comparable validity to astrology and astronomy. And yet when someone comes at me with explanations of anything social and behavioral in humans predicated on epigenetic effects, I cringe like an astronomer informed that planetary dynamics determine my personal character (typical Capricorn hubris they might say). ![]() I am a geneticist and happy to stipulate that epigenetics is responsible for a considerable amount of our planet’s dazzling biological complexity. In the last decade, sweeping mainstream-media claims about epigenetics’ expansive role in shaping our world have become hard to escape. And the colorful accumulation of custom Post-Its interleaved throughout each individual copy are the personalized marginalia we call epigenetics. That massive compilation of IKEA manuals is, of course, the DNA sequence each plant or animal carries in its every cell. Under current conditions, the panicked ones scribbled under the stress of a sudden post-breakup move might no longer seem like the smartest approach, but you’d find yourself bound to follow them just as closely as the printed IKEA steps they modified. Some would have been revised, refined and overwritten multiple times. Some of your Post-Its from earlier moves or IKEA binges would be more helpful than others. Occasionally the handwriting might be your father’s, mother’s or even grandmother’s. They’ll be in a familiar script: notes in your own hand guiding you, based on previous assemblies. Others would include little hand-written notes, corrections, tips: “actually, do this step face-down on carpet so you don’t dent the veneer”, “do this one twelve times, not the six prescribed”, “skip this step and come back to it at the end, trust me, it’ll be easier that way”, etc. Some would simply mark your specific starting place and you’d be on your own. There they’d be: color-coded tabs sticking out of the relevant tier of your universal manual. Except each time, you’d quickly find your way according to a system of personalized Post-It notes. You would sit down to assemble your chest of drawers, your wobbly-legged high chair, and your pendant lamp, and for each disparate item, you’d consult the same unwieldy stack of comprehensive instructions. Diagrams or processes that apply to hundreds of distinct products could be cross-referenced and only appear once, but the document would still run to thousands of pages. The manual would be a few meters tall, a ponderous compendium of every diagram-filled instruction booklet for every item in the warehouse. Imagine instead that each item required you to lug home another universal IKEA instruction manual. ![]() Every piece of IKEA furniture comes with a printed instruction manual of diagrams, its thickness and page count varying according to the complexity of the item’s construction. ![]()
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