Re: virus: Re: Rationality (meme make-up)

Dan Plante (danp@ampsc.com)
Thu, 20 Mar 1997 23:11:56 -0800


At 02:39 PM 3/19/97 -0800, you wrote:
>> When did genes suddenly lose the quality of being uniquely identifiable?
>> A gene is at least identifiable as the base-pair sequence that corresponds to
>> the protein that is transcribed from its corresponding RNA. I'm surely no
>> geneticist, but this is fairly fundamental, isn't it? It's certainly not a
>> "mathematical abstraction". Perhaps you're confusing the expression of a
>> single, identifiable trait with a single, specific gene.
>
>What you describe is called a "cistron".

"Hmmmm...so it is." he says, as he quits Netscape. Thanks.
And yet, specific proteins, p53 for instance, are repeatedly referred
to as the "product of the p53 gene" in the peer-reviewed literature,
especially for isolated (non-catalytic and non-precursor) proteins, which
I assume would be "mono-cistronic" genes. Strange. Time to start digging...

>The set of three base-pairs
>within a cistron that code for a specific amino acid (or to an instruction

<snip>

I wasn't familiar with Mandel. Thanks again.

>their alleles in the gene pool to produce selection; individual cistrons
>do not compete in this way, so they aren't "genes".

Except (apparently) for plants......interesting.
I feel myself slipping into a new paradigm.

Dan
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initial conditions = data (conception)
control of data = information (conception to puberty)
control of information = knowledge (puberty to marriage)
control of knowledge = wisdom (marriage to divorce)
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