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The anomalies arising from Human Genome Project data banks are described by Miklos and Rubin (The role of the Genome Project in determining gene function: Insights from model organisms. Cell 86: 521–529, 1996) Also presented is a scheme for reducing complex function to small clusters of functionally related genes. The hope is that major physiological functions in different species will all exhibit identical or nearly identical patterns of gene utilization. If correct, such reduction may prove useful, but it appears limited in that the search for causality seems to remain focused on the identity of the genetic entities. A more interesting acknowledgment of complexity, in this case in the brain, comes from Edelman and his group. They are evolving models of the brain that also identify subsystem activities, but that attempt to show how “…the complex brain can deal with context and go ‘beyond the information given’.” Going beyond the information given clearly implies going beyond the genome and the need for some epigenetic function having to do with emergent behavior. (Tononi.G., Scorns, O., and Edelman, G.M. 1996. A complexity measure for selective matching of signals by the brain Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 96: 3422-3427)
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Strohman, R. The coming Kuhnian revolution in biology. Nat Biotechnol 15, 194–200 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0397-194
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0397-194
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