you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]Lyssa 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I thougt you were referring to the fact that large parts of our DNA are what researchers used to refer to as "trash", i.e. not builing body parts even in mitosis or meiosis but just being copied along with the parts actually doing something...

Anyhow: Of course genes re "active" technically when read. Just like a library. Nevertheless, a library of cooking books is fundamentally different from a library on aeronautics and not at all "the same" or "not important" unless currently being read. Yes, you can use both as fancy wallpapers. But that is the equivalent for a library of a biological death of the carrier for DNA.

Your chromosomes decide what your body looks like, what your IQ potential is (note I've said potential, not IQ) and if you e.g. have Huntington's Chorea. If you had one of the more dramatic variations (like Huntington's...) the notion "it's only important during cell devision, but so TOTALLY irrelevant for your life" would probably be rather infuriating...