This is in response to a PBS program titled “Ghost in your genes“ which originally aired October 16, 2007. The program describes the role of epigenomes in something called ‘gene expression’. There was a great part on the history of the Human Genome Project that I would like to focus on and run with here:
WOLF REIK (The Babraham Institute): The human genome is like a bible where everything was written down. The hope and the expectation was that once we had that book in front of us, and all the letters, we could just read down the pages and we would understand how the body was put together.
NARRATOR: Once the code was deciphered, scientists hoped to find the genetic cause and cure for every disease. They estimated that the human genome, the book of life, would contain around 100,000 genes.
MICHAEL SKINNER (Washington State University): And then when they started sequencing…and it popped down to 60. And then it popped down to 50. And, slowly, it went down to a much smaller number.
NARRATOR: Thirty thousand, twenty-five thousand…as the mapping drew to an end, it appeared that humans had about the same number of genes as fish and mice.
MICHAEL SKINNER: In fact, we found out that the human genome is probably not as complex and doesn’t have as many genes as plants do. So that, then, made us really question, “Well, if the genome has less genes in this species versus this species, and we’re more complex potentially, what’s going on here?”
NARRATOR: So few genes didn’t appear enough to explain human complexity. Even more startling, it turned out the same key genes that make a fruitfly, a worm or a mouse also make a human. Chimpanzees share 98.9 percent of our genome. So what accounts for the vast differences between species? Might genes not be the whole story?
Good stuff.
Now let’s take a look at the Human inspired Music Genome Project, which “set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level.” This is another instance of, in the words of Wolf Reik, “a bible where everything was written down.”
I’d have to imagine that the people involved in the Music Genome Project had a similarly head scratching moment as the people involved in the Human Genome Project. I’m not really concerned here with why exactly that may be. It seems clear that the music genome has limitations and there is a fair amount of criticism floating around for those interested.
A final quote from “Ghost in your genes”:
NARRATOR: What distinguishes cells is not their genes, but how these genes are switched on or off by epigenetics.
The human genome and the music genome are obviously two extremely different things, one examines how attributes are arrived at and the other catalogues attributes. They do, however, share two out of their three word titles and their core intentions of cataloging are very similar.
My question to you is: if the Human Genome Project hit a dead end and led to an intense study of epigenetics, what would the equivalent for this be for the Music Genome Project? If the human genome proved inadequate in explaining our differences and complexity as a species, what leaps would make the music genome more meaningful than the current list of musical attributes?
