"Our low gene count by no means invalidates a reductionist approach to biological systems, nor does it justify any logical inference that we are not determined by our genes. A fertilized egg containing a chimp genome still inevitably produces a chimp, while a fertilized egg containing a human genome produces a human. No amount of exposure to classical music or violence on TV could make it otherwise. Yes, we have a long way to go in developing our understanding of just how the information in those two remarkably similar genomes is applied to the task of producing two apparently very different organisms, but the fact remains that the greatest part of what each individual organism will be is programmed ineluctably into its every cell, in the genome."
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Atheists from the United StatesBiologists from the United StatesZoologists from the United StatesNobel laureates in Physiology or MedicineGeneticists
Original Language: English
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Chapter 9, “Reading Genomes: Evolution in Action” (p. 234)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_D._Watson
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James D. Watson
James Dewey Watson (April 6, 1928 – November 6, 2025) was an American scientist, most known as one of the four discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule.
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