Posted by Klavot on May 11, 2007, at 15:09:09
In reply to Re: Bi Polar/Recurrent Unipolar and Antidepressant, posted by Squiggles on May 11, 2007, at 14:24:32
The renowned evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins points out that the analogy of one's DNA being like a blueprint for your body is a poor analogy. Every part of a blueprint corresponds to a particular component of the building or machine that it represents. He says a better analogy would be that your DNA is a *recipe* for the construction of your body. Individual letters or words in a recipe for a cake do not correspond to particular parts of the cake. Likewise, individual genes in one's DNA do not correspond to particular characteristics in your body. Thus, it is unlikely that there would be such a thing as a "depression" gene or a "bipolar" gene that can be switched on or off. If depression and bipolar disorder do have a genetic basis, such basis would represent as a complex combination of gene variations.
Klavot
poster:Klavot
thread:757534
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070509/msgs/757826.html