authors:
- Davies, Jamie A
content: 'A brilliant book. It manages to explain a very complicated process of develpment
  of the embroy by focusing on the fundamental mechanisms. In particular it makes
  clear the fact that all forces working during development are in a certain sense
  local, that is, there is no overarching direction or plan. Every cell is doing what
  is natural for it at that specific place given its internal and external context.


  A most important point that the book brings across is that the phrase "gene X is
  responsible for feature Y" is extremely misleading. It is a short-hand for the scientific
  statement that when one alters gene X, for example makes it non-functional, then
  feature Y of the embryo or the mature organism is in some way changed or dysfunctional.
  This does not mean that gene X contains all information required to produce Y. The
  genomes is *not* a blueprint of the organism, it is more like a recipe for how to
  produce the organism given a suitable environment, a recipe where many genes are
  involved in creating each feature of the organism.'
date: '2016-04-03'
edition:
  published: '2014'
  publisher: Oxford University Press
goodreads: '18552507'
html: '<p>A brilliant book. It manages to explain a very complicated process of develpment
  of the embroy by focusing on the fundamental mechanisms. In particular it makes
  clear the fact that all forces working during development are in a certain sense
  local, that is, there is no overarching direction or plan. Every cell is doing what
  is natural for it at that specific place given its internal and external context.</p>

  <p>A most important point that the book brings across is that the phrase &quot;gene
  X is responsible for feature Y&quot; is extremely misleading. It is a short-hand
  for the scientific statement that when one alters gene X, for example makes it non-functional,
  then feature Y of the embryo or the mature organism is in some way changed or dysfunctional.
  This does not mean that gene X contains all information required to produce Y. The
  genomes is <em>not</em> a blueprint of the organism, it is more like a recipe for
  how to produce the organism given a suitable environment, a recipe where many genes
  are involved in creating each feature of the organism.</p>

  '
isbn: '9780199673537'
language: en
lastmod: '2016-04-03'
path: /library/davies-2014.html
published: '2014'
rating: 5
reference: Davies 2014
reviewed: '2016-04-03'
subjects:
- biomedicine
- evolution
- science
title: 'Life Unfolding: How the Human Body Creates Itself'
type: book
year: 2014