We have forty-six chromosomes, but some ferns have more than six hundred. The lungfish, one of the least evolved of all complex animals, has forty times as much DNA as we have. Even the common newt is more genetically splendorous than we are, by a factor of five.
我們有46對(duì)染色體，但是有些蕨類植物的染色體多達(dá)600多對(duì)。肺魚，所有動(dòng)物中一種進(jìn)化最不完善的魚類，其染色體數(shù)是我們的40倍。即便是普通的水螈，其基因數(shù)也是我們的5倍。
Clearly it is not the number of genes you have, but what you do with them. This is a very good thing because the number of genes in humans has taken a big hit lately. Until recently it was thought that humans had at least 100,000 genes, possibly a good many more, but that number was drastically reduced by the first results of the Human Genome Project, which suggested a figure more like 35,000 or 40,000 genes — about the same number as are found in grass. That came as both a surprise and a disappointment.
顯然，問(wèn)題的關(guān)鍵并不在于你有多少基因，而在于你怎樣對(duì)待它們。人類基因數(shù)近來(lái)成了人們熱烈討論的一個(gè)話題，這是一件好事情。直到不久以前，許多人以為人類至少有10萬(wàn)個(gè)基因，也許還更多，但是人類基因工程的第一批研究結(jié)果使得這個(gè)數(shù)字大大縮水。研究表明，人類只有3.5萬(wàn) — 4萬(wàn)個(gè)基因——與草的基因數(shù)相同。這個(gè)結(jié)果既令人吃驚，又不免有些令人失望。
It won't have escaped your attention that genes have been commonly implicated in any number of human frailties. Exultant scientists have at various times declared themselves to have found the genes responsible for obesity, schizophrenia, homosexuality, criminality, violence, alcoholism, even shoplifting and homelessness. Perhaps the apogee (or nadir) of this faith in biodeterminism was a study published in the journal Science in 1980 contending that women are genetically inferior at mathematics. In fact, we now know, almost nothing about you is so accommodatingly simple.
你大概已經(jīng)注意到，基因已經(jīng)非常頻繁地很人類的眾多病癥扯在一起。欣喜若狂的科學(xué)家一次又一次地宣稱他們已經(jīng)發(fā)現(xiàn)了導(dǎo)致肥胖癥、精神分裂癥、同性戀傾問(wèn)、犯罪行為、暴力、酗酒乃至商場(chǎng)扒竊和流浪的基因。這種基因決定論的最高潮（或最低潮）就是發(fā)表于1980年《科學(xué)》月刊的一篇論文，該文十分肯定地宣稱婦女的基因構(gòu)成先天注定了她們?cè)跀?shù)學(xué)方面能力低下。事實(shí)上，我們現(xiàn)在知道，有關(guān)你的任何方面都不是那么簡(jiǎn)單的。
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