Pushpa
Q3: Who coined that name and is there any specific
scientific definition for "Selfish genes"?
My
answer: Determining the size of DNA from virus,
bacteria and eukaryotes made sense that DNA size increased linearly, with
evolution. But, sequencing human genome revealed that the human genome is ~3
billion base pairs and codes for ~20,000 proteins that constitute only 1-2% of
the genome. By the way, crab has 10 time more DNA per cell and trees have 100
times more DNA per cell than human. The idea of selfish DNA came in realization
of the fact that large proportion of noncoding DNA is present in eukaryotic genomes. In 1980, Leslie Orgel
and Francis Crick published a paper in the journal “Nature” titled: Selfish
DNA: the ultimate parasite.
The
credit goes to Richard Dawkins. You should read two of his books:
“The Selfish Gene” and “Blind Watchmaker” and me as a Hindu I have one more
“Bhaja Govindam” by Chinmaya to maintain sanity, otherwise you become atheist. Those are the 3
books I have on my bedside bookshelf.
Chandru Jr
Biochem 71-74
