Elusive locus of control in biological development: genetic versus developmental programs.
Taken as a composite, the meaning of the composite term "genetic program"-widely taken to suggest an explanation of biological development - simultaneously depends upon and underwrites the particular presumption that a "plan of procedure" for development is itself written in the sequence of nucleotide bases. Is this presumption correct? I want to argue that, at best, it must be said to be misleading, and at worst, simply false: To the extent that we may speak at all of a developmental program, or of a set of instructions for development, in contra-distinction to the data or resources for such a program, current research obliges us to acknowledge that these "instructions" are not written into the DNA itself (or at least, are not all written in the DNA), but rather are distributed throughout the fertilized egg. I will argue that the notion of genetic program depends upon, and sustains, a fundamental category error in which two independent distinctions, one between "genetic" and "epigenetic," and the other, between program and data, are pulled into mistaken alignment. The net effect of such alignment is to reinforce two outmoded associations: on the one hand, between "genetic" and active, and, on the other, between "epigenetic" and passive. J. Exp. Zool. (Mol. Dev. Evol.) 285:283-290, 1999.
Fox Keller
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. efkeller@mit.edu
D000818:Animals; D015509:Developmental Biology / Q000266:history / Q000639:trends*; D005314:Embryonic and Fetal Development / Q000235:genetics*; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D009024:Morphogenesis / Q000235:genetics*