Bret Weinstein

a dosage compensation.

You can have a gene that's repeated multiple times, and the more copies you have, the larger dose of the product that you get, right?

So if you have three copies of alcohol dehydrogenase, you'll have more alcohol tolerance than two copies, something like that.

So that demonstrates a way in triplet codon language that you can store a variable.

But what I'm arguing is that there's, at least in principle, the possibility for a vast library of variables that have developmental implications for the way creatures look that allows you to go.

I mean, imagine for a second the most recent common ancestor of all bats.

Okay.

Most recent common ancestor of all bats is an animal that has gone from

no ability to fly to the ability to fly.

As soon as you have the ability to fly, the number of things that you could do, the number of niches that are available is very large.

This is why I love you, Joe.

I mean, it's one of the reasons.

This is a question that has perplexed biologists.

We have done a lot of work.

We know a lot.

It's one of the most fantastic abilities of all the animals.

Right.

How surprising is it?

That's the question.

Is it so surprising that it's actually impossible?