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Biological Reductionism versus Redundancy in a Degenerate World
- Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 61, Number 4, Autumn 2018
- pp. 517-526
- 10.1353/pbm.2018.0061
- Article
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ABSTRACT:
The precision medicine narrative relies on the reductionist assumption that there is a strong linkage between genotype and complex traits (phenotypes). This essay uses examples from humans and other "higher" animals to argue that redundant and degenerate mechanisms operating at the physiological level limit both the general utility of this assumption and the specific utility of the precision medicine narrative.