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