![]() ![]() As Rutherford notes: “The greatest achievement of the Human Genome Project was working out exactly how little we knew.” Yet scientists had no inkling our complement of genes was so meagre. Humans turn out to have fewer genes than a roundworm. “And they were not just a little bit out.” Our much-vaunted understanding of how DNA rules our bodies, minds and lives, gleaned in the latter half of the 20th century, was shown to rest on rather shaky intellectual ground. “The best experts in the world were all mistaken,” writes Rutherford. Then, in 2003, the Human Genome Project revealed the true figure. ![]() The lowest guess, by US geneticist Lee Rowen, was 25,947. Other researchers stuck at around 150,000 while most plumped for a figure above 70,000. Surely we must have a huge number of genes to control the manufacture of the proteins from which our densely connected neural circuits are made. After all, we are extraordinarily complex creatures, it was argued. Some believed the project would show humans have up to 250,000 genes. ![]() A total of 460 geneticists – including several Nobel winners – stepped up to make their predictions. ![]()
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