Is Genome a Generative Model of the Organism?
A new provocative paper proposes to re-evaluate our notion of how genotype determines phenotype under the evolutionary pressure.
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Let’s get to this week’s topic!
In a new provocative paper, "The Genomic Code: The genome instantiates a generative model of the organism," the authors, Dr. Kevin Mitchell, a Neurogeneticist at Trinity College Dublin and Dr. Nick Cheney, a Computer Scientist at the University of Vermont, propose a new way of thinking about genome. Unlike a traditional notion of a “blueprint” of the organism, the authors suggest that it may be a closer to how a deep neural network operates. Evolutionary forces play a role of a “training“ mechanism, while the embryo plays a role of a “decoder.”
I recommend reading this 30+ page article as it entertains imagination at the very least, and potentially, opens avenues for new ways of modeling evolutionary processes.
But if you don’t have time to go through the whole thing, let’s dissect the key aspects of the proposed theory: