Thanks for the insight on Nick Wade. He appears to have been quite let down that there isn't a 1:1 mapping between genes and specific disease outcomes. No evolutionary biologist would be remotely surprised by this.
The startling fact that he fails to observe is that genes are only part of the picture. Every gene is expressed in a variety of environments and at each level (DNA, the cell, the tissue, organ, organism, etc.) environmental impacts are significant.
I'm very excited about the potential of 23andme to offer a significant leap forward in this sort of statistical work that can tease out more environmental factors b/c of the elaborate surveys they have created under 23andwe.
Of course, these are not going to all be publishable quality at first, but the important thing is to start to understand (and respect) what is going on.
The startling fact that he fails to observe is that genes are only part of the picture. Every gene is expressed in a variety of environments and at each level (DNA, the cell, the tissue, organ, organism, etc.) environmental impacts are significant.
I'm very excited about the potential of 23andme to offer a significant leap forward in this sort of statistical work that can tease out more environmental factors b/c of the elaborate surveys they have created under 23andwe.
Of course, these are not going to all be publishable quality at first, but the important thing is to start to understand (and respect) what is going on.