What is the difference between people?

A long time ago, people were used to looking up at the stars, thinking about who I am, where I came from, and where I wanted to go.

Darwin proposed the theory of evolution, Mendel repeated the pea experiment, Morgan created the theory of chromosome genetics, Schrödinger published "What is Life", Mahler studied artificially induced mutations.

As a science student who has been in the field of life sciences for 20 years, my understanding of the question of "what is life" is—the essence of life is chemistry, the essence of chemistry is physics, and the essence of physics is described by mathematics.

The author of the original English edition of this book is Matt Ridley, a PhD in Zoology, a visiting professor at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, and a well-known popular science writer.

Understanding life from the genetic level will bring you a wonderful experience.

Genetic record history

Human beings are willing to record history, whether it is word of mouth or written biography, this is the way human beings pass on survival experience.

Humans also carry history with them.

Our genes are distributed on 23 pairs of chromosomes and affect all aspects related to us.

The human genome is a piece of human history written in genetic code.

Gene-related diseases

Genes record human history, including diseases.

Driven by "inheritance" and "variation", genes are looking for a breakthrough for life under different environmental changes.

Gene mutation is the driving force of evolution and the cause of disease.

Human understanding of "genetic diseases" also develops with the improvement of cognition.

The original English version of this book was published in 1999.

Today, it has been 30 years since the launch of the Human Genome Project.

With the development of the Human Genome Project and the continuous upgrading of sequencing technology, the cost of genetic testing is declining year by year at a speed exceeding Moore's Law.

At the same time, the development of genetic technology is also facing some difficulties.
Genetic testing is a way to predict the risk of disease, but it is still being questioned because the current treatment of genetic diseases has not made breakthrough progress.
Genetic testing is also easily considered to cause genetic discrimination.
Whether genes are personal privacy or information that should be disclosed is still a question of bioethics.
At the same time, in some people's eyes, the artificial genetic manipulation method is against nature, and genetic engineering technology has not been generally accepted by the public.
The popularization of genetic technology still has a way to go.

Gene determines everything? it's not true

Genes affect our past and future does not mean that we agree with genetic determinism.
In fact, the environment plays an equally important role, and acquired influences will also bring complex consequences.
Both the genome and the environment are in dynamic changes, and the shaping of people's thoughts and behaviors by the two is also dynamic.
As the author said, the "Book of Life" interpreted by the Human Genome Project is just a static snapshot of the book.
Perhaps this is the choice and truth facing life -change is eternal, and change is temporary.

Darwin’s cousin Galton proposed the theory of racial optimization, and Huxley used Brave New World to condemn a society that ignores human genetic diversity and only uses a unified acquired way to shape human behavior and thought.
That would be How absurd and terrifying .
In modern times, some developed countries in Europe and the United States once prohibited people with insufficiency from having offspring.
This is undoubtedly a dark history of human civilization.
The extreme genetic theory ignores people's initiative and makes people have no choice but to accept passive arrangements.

In fact, if there are no human obstacles, then people are not powerless in the face of genes.
Genes affect our character and thoughts, but they do not completely influence them.
To a certain extent, our will is free.
From a genetic point of view, each person is unique, as well as from an ideological point of view.

Human beings with free will make other life on this planet more and more unfree.
We transform the environment to create objective conditions for satisfying material life and spiritual enjoyment, but we rarely take into account the rights of other life to live on the earth.
Turning to human history, we have now returned to rational thinking about the story of the Europeans occupying the Americas and the massive deaths of the aborigines.
In fact, humans are repeating this to other species all the time.
In order to expand our living and farming territories, or even just to sell natural resources, we want to cut down forests, kill animals, fill lakes and seas, and regard the earth, which is rich in biodiversity, as the only owner of humans.
Natural retaliation is equally violent.
Every once in a while, there will be a major outbreak of infectious diseases, as if the ecologically destroyed Earth program is self-checking, trying to clean up the wrong data.

It's time to reread human history, think about the nature and meaning of life, and re-examine our relationship with other life and the earth's ecosystem.
Let us be less proud, more humble, less disruptive, and more harmonious.
The earth does not belong to human beings, all life is just residents.
After all, the unique human body we know is nothing more than an ecosystem designed by DNA/RNA programming.

Finally, when the book is announced, I would like to thank my colleagues who helped me in this process, especially Huang Hui, Zhai Teng, Wang Hui, Cui Huanhuan, Wu Jing, Chen Huishuang, Wang Yanyan, Fu Qinmei, Chen Dongna from the genome consulting team.
, Zhao Jing, Li Wei, etc.
for their help in this process, but also thank Xia Zhi, Peng Zhiyu, Hu Yujie and others for their valuable comments and suggestions in the process of writing this book.
With their professional control, it can be said to be at ease.