Comments on "Here Is a Human Being - At the Dawn of Personal Genomics" by Misha Angrist
The author of this book, Misha Angrist, quotes others to say that, actually, the entire human genome has not been sequenced because about 7% of the 6 billion base pairs in our 23 pairs of chromosomes, for some reason or other, do not yet yield to sequencing. He does not say anything more about this fact, such as, where is all of this "refractory 7%" located on our chromosomes.
Besides that, instead of a clear "blueprint" for human life, what has been sequenced, or deciphered, of our chromosomes, is often so apparentely repititious and "mixed up", that it is a wonder how it all works, or that it works at all.
None the less, this incredible scientific achievement has led to such a deluge of billions upon billions of facts, that there seems to be as much mystery in understanding the developement of a human life and the genetic sciences as there was 20 years ago, before the genome project had really started. Various scientific experts disagree with each other on the determining importance of our genes and chromosomes.
We all begin with a single cell, the fertilized egg and its chromosomes, but to become a mature adult involves an unimaginable and incomprehensible number of factors and processes. Beyond that, an adult human life includes so much unpredictabiblty of an unimaginable number of events that the control and influence of our beginning and life long individual genomes might seem all but buried.
Besides having a PhD and postdoctoral work in genetics, the author also has a Master of Fine Arts in writing and literature.
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