GENE GENIE
It’s deeply unfair. Shortly after we’re conceived, our genetic material – long sequences of chemical codes arranged in a double-helical structure called DNA, tightly bundled into dense thread-like structures called chromosomes – is uncoiled and scanned by complex factories of molecular machinery.
These factories use our genes as blueprints for turning a tiny, fertilised egg into a fully grown human, assembling proteins into cells, cells into organs, organs into anatomical systems – digestive, muscular, cardiovascular, nervous – that allow us to eat, walk, breathe and think. But we have no control over which genes we get, or the type of person they turn us into.
Each of us is genetically unique. We inherit our DNA from our parents, but in each sperm or egg the genetic sequences are recombined, shuffled around, mixed up. Which is why each of us resembles the other members of our family, but none of us is identical to them (even identical twins have minor genetic differences). If two people were able to produce kids carrying every possible combination of their genotypes, they’d have 70 trillion children.
We like to tell ourselves that we’re all equal, despite our vast, randomly generated genetic diversity – that life is about the choices we make or the world we’re born into. These assumptions carry over into our politics. On the right, success or failure is considered meritocratic:
