Quotes About Genetics

We are all born with a genetic inheritance—but your genes are activated by the environment. They can be switched on, or off, by what happens to you.

It said depression and anxiety were carried in your genes. I knew my mother had been depressed and highly anxious before I was born (and after), and that we had these problems in my family running further back than that.

Almost all aspects of life are engineered at the molecular level, and without understanding molecules we can only have a very sketchy understanding of life itself.

The gift of language is the single human trait that marks us all genetically, setting us apart from the rest of life.

Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators. The watchmaker is blind

Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families. GEORGE HENRY LEWES, The Physiology of Common Life Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe.

The variety of genes on the planet in viruses exceeds, or is likely to exceed, that in all of the rest of life combined.

People have freaked out when I tell them that my dragons are scientifically based... what else can you call a genetically engineered life form?

You can't even begin to understand biology, you can't understand life, unless you understand what it's all there for, how it arose - and that means evolution.

Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science - in all of biology.

The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Is there a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and the empiricist world views?

This [double helix] structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest…. It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.

Heredity provides for the modification of its own machinery.

I really do believe there are things passed down. Behaviour, not just DNA. Psychological make-up. You can see it in dogs. If you want to breed a calm dog, don't get two fighters.

Evolution is an indispensable component of any satisfying explanation of our psychology.

Actually, I do have a knack of pulling things off with a straight face, guess it runs in my family.

You can improve your punching power, but only to an extent. If you can punch hard, then it's just god-given, that's just nature, not nurture and there's not much you can do to develop punching power.

The biggest reveal was that a lot of these DNA test companies, they're commercial enterprises, right? So they basically purchase or acquire DNA samples based on market demand.

I have a big following among the biogeeks of this world. Nobody ever puts them in books.

I used to very politely say that if there is free will then it's in all sorts of boring places, like whether you're going to pick up this or that fork as you begin your meal. There really is none: It's all biology.

I get most of my athleticism from my mom. I know my dad cringes every single time I say that, but my competitive nature was always fueled by my dad.

still wanted those genetic characteristics carried by the Atreides.

The Tleilaxu secret must be in their sperm. Our tests prove that their sperm does not carry forward in a straight genetic fashion. Gaps occur. Every Tleilaxu we have examined has hidden his inner self from us. They are naturally immune to an Ixian Probe! Secrecy at the deepest levels, that is their ultimate armor and their ultimate weapon.   —Bene Gesserit Analysis, Archives Code: BTXX441WOR       On

Here, they showed us the Walden Fallacy in ultimate foolishness, explaining: Given any species which reproduces by genetic mingling such that every individual is a unique specimen, all attempts to impose a decision matrix based on assumed uniform behavior will prove lethal. — The Dosadi Papers, BuSab reference