Genes, genomes, and codes: Revisiting some key terms with multiple meanings

Autores/as

  • Evelyn Fox Keller Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA).

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.6.4083

Palabras clave:

code, codescript, central dogma, genetic information, genes and genomes

Resumen

Is a genome the full complement of an organism’s genes or of its DNA? Is genetics the study of genes or of heredity? Is the genetic code the mechanism for translating nucleotide sequence to amino acid sequence or to phenotype? Does «genetic information» refer to the sequences coding for proteins or to all DNA sequences? Each of these questions stems from an elision between one, concrete, meaning, and another, open-ended and ambiguous. Such elision invites the illusion that the ambiguity of the open-ended term has been resolved, and by implication, that the gap between actual achievement and promise has been closed. Yet, despite the phenomenal progress molecular biology has made, we remain without an adequate account of the organization of proteins into an organism. 

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Biografía del autor/a

Evelyn Fox Keller, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA).

Professor Emerita of History and Philosophy of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). She is the author of several books, such as The century of the gene (Harvard University Press, 2000), Making sense of life: Explaining biological development with models, metaphors and machines (Harvard University Press, 2002) and The mirage of a space between nature and nurture (Duke University Press, 2010).

Citas

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Oxford English Dictionary. (n.d.). Code. In F. McPherson (Ed.) Oxford English dictionary online. Retrieved from http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/35578?rskey=ppAXGm&result=1#eid

Schrödinger, E. (1944). What is life? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The ENCODE Project Consortium. (2007). Identification and analysis of functional elements in 1 % of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project. Nature, 447, 799–816. doi: 10.1038/nature05874

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Weinberg, R. A. (1991). The human genome initiative. There are two large questions. The FASEB Journal, 5, 78.

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Publicado

15-04-2016

Cómo citar

Fox Keller, E. (2016). Genes, genomes, and codes: Revisiting some key terms with multiple meanings. Metode Science Studies Journal, (6), 135–141. https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.6.4083
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Artículos en línea - Abril 2015

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Retórica de la ciencia

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