Sixty years have passed since Watson and Crick unveiled the structure of the DNA double helix and tentatively explained how it encodes hereditary information. The Central Dogma of genetics soon followed: that “DNA makes RNA makes protein” makes cells and organisms. Once this “River out of Eden” was flowing, the story of life was deemed to be essentially understood. Genes were considered to provide the blueprint of life and the task of filling in the details had begun. The blueprint motif was prominent in media coverage of the Human Genome project – any who questioned its veracity were regarded as subverting science. But is the consensus position robust? At least one commentator (Philip Ball in Nature) is prepared to say that it is misleading.
“But I can tell that the usual tidy tale of how ‘DNA makes RNA makes protein’ is sanitized to the point of distortion. Instead of occasional, muted confessions from genomics boosters and popularizers of evolution that the story has turned out to be a little more complex, there should be a bolder admission – indeed a celebration – of the known unknowns.” (page 419)
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