This is one of the last Doctor Who books I tried to start. The prose and setting was so dull that I felt like suffocating myself with my own pillow just to escape it.
So can anyone remember what this actually SAID about life-after-death? Does it contradict the PROVEN FACT that it's just darkness (give or take the odd monster)?
Wasn't this book going on and on about, um...*hastily checks Reference Guide* aha! NINETY-SEVEN PER CENT of human DNA being 'junk'?
Well, guess what? Scientists have now announced that 'The term junk DNA must now be junked. It's clear from this research that a far bigger part of the genome is biologically active than was previously thought.'
So THERE.
Of course, the Doctor was kinda amnesiac at the time, but all the same, after over a century on Earth SURELY he'd run a few experiments on so-called junk DNA and REALISED it wasn't anything of the sort?
Wasn't this book going on and on about, um...*hastily checks Reference Guide* aha! NINETY-SEVEN PER CENT of human DNA being 'junk'?
Well, guess what? Scientists have now announced that 'The term junk DNA must now be junked. It's clear from this research that a far bigger part of the genome is biologically active than was previously thought.'
The 97% figure was always an absurd overestimate for the amount of junk DNA. That level of inefficiency would be rapidly pruned by natural selection.
Nonetheless, the latest research doesn't show that all human DNA is useful - the papers are pretty bad at reporting science. The majority of DNA is certainly useful, but scientists have already found wrecked genes and viruses embedded in our genome.
We've still got the genes that would let us make our own vitamin C, but the 'on switch' for them is broken, and the gene speckled with mutations, so it can't do anything useful. There are also retroviruses, like feline leukemia and HIV, that insert themselves into DNA, and get passed down the generations. Mammals use some viral genes in reproduction, but most of them are at best junk. Some of them are implicated in various forms of cancer.
This means that when the Doctor talks about junk DNA, he's not talking complete nonsense - there is such a thing - but most of what he says about it is not reliable. Presumably, the Doctor hasn't studied human biology since his time with Lister, centuries ago, so his inaccuracies are understandable.
The 97% figure was always an absurd overestimate for the amount of junk DNA. That level of inefficiency would be rapidly pruned by natural selection.
Well, as long as 97% was an absurd overestimate back in 2001 when Vanishing Point was written, I'm happy. Honestly, it should occur to Who writers BY NOW that science is gonna make these inconvenient little discoveries...
This means that when the Doctor talks about junk DNA, he's not talking complete nonsense - there is such a thing - but most of what he says about it is not reliable. Presumably, the Doctor hasn't studied human biology since his time with Lister, centuries ago, so his inaccuracies are understandable.
Well, on the one hand the Doc IS suffering from amnesia about all the events of his life from Ancestor Cell onwards, so he wouldn't even remember Lister. On the other hand, he HAS just spent well over a century stuck on Earth with nothing better to do than study humans. He'd obviously read up on these junk DNA theories, so surely he'd take an attitude not dissimilar to Matt-in-a-museum/Tom-reading-a-creation-of-the-universe-book and treat them with a lot of scepticism instead of regurgitating them whole for Vanishing Point.
'The Doctor, after more than a century of nothing but humans for company, had become hell-bent on meeting as many googly-eyed monsters as possible' - hey, he had several alien encounters during his Century Of Hell, didn't he?
'Etty had to be crazy. Delusional. How could God exist for sure? The whole point about Him was that you believed even though you had no proof of His existence...You had faith. God wasn't God if you knew His address' - really? The Old Testament ALWAYS had the git popping up to prove his existence by genociding anyone who disagreed with said existence. And the New Testament always had the considerably-less-gittish-once-he's-regenerated-into-a-human proving his existence with a series of Paul Daniels-style magic tricks.
'The endless gravitic anomalies in this area of space that made reaching planets such as this one a dangerous but irresistible challenge for a seasoned traveller, cooped up on one world for so long' - sorry, WHAT! The Doctor HAS AMNESIA. He doesn't know how to steer the TARDIS, let alone through endless gravitic anomalies. Plus he's SUPPOSED to be getting Anji home, not risking her life to show off his driving skills.
The fact that Derran Sherat hasn't contacted Etty 'presumably means he's all right' Anji deduces. Of course, he could have not contacted her owing to being DEAD...
Anji and Etty knew they might be under attack at any time by the gang that had previously attacked them, but still didn't think to LOCK THE DOORS? Also, pretty stupid of the Doctor to leave 'em in an isolated farmhouse, in the circumstances. ALSO pretty stupid of Anji not to suggest it's time to PHONE THE POLICE NOW.
'Whoever made it has done rather well for himself' - the Doctor is a sexist git. You heard it here first. (Well, perhaps not first...)
'Category-G offences.... Category G, cat G, don't you see? It's an acronym, notation for the four DNA bases, cytosine, adenine, thymine and guanine... Almost like a joke. A joke no one on this world could ever understand. So why...?' - more to the point, a joke that was only possible for an ENGLISH-SPEAKER to make, surely?
'I should be in a hospital, not some kid's bed in the middle of nowhere' 'And what hospital is going to take you. You don't exist here, remember?' - shouldn't Anji n'Fitz be asking Etty if you need ID to go to hospital here, rather than risk shot-Fitz's life messing around with a few herbs?
'His file at the Diviners' Mission, every possible detail of his life and times, has been impossibly eradicated' - the Doctor knows perfectly well that wiping computer records is hardly IMPOSSIBLE.
'"I can feel..." He shivered. "Evil. It's closing in, all the time"' - for heaven's sake! The Doctor doesn't talk like that! Well, not since Hartnell got a bit shivery in War Machines...
So a Diviner has 1% junk DNA (and the Doctor is 'withering' about the idea that the plebs won't be the same) and a Holiest 0%? Is that possible?
'In response, the Doctor assumed a ludicrous kung fu pose and squawked like a parakeet' - as if a (non-Pertwee) Doctor would EVER do anything of the sort!
'He'd even managed to find his way to this Diviners' records place without taking a wrong turning' - I'm sorry, the Doctor acquired a sense of direction WHEN, exactly?
'I believe that they discovered a gene for the soul' - leaving aside my objections to this 'soul' nonsense...if there WAS such a thing surely the TIME LORDS should have spotted it?
'He'd been found wandering, raving, locked up for five days in a Victorian ward packed with consumptives, as bristly doctors and stern nurses tried to work out what was wrong with him' - he's a raving nutter, that's what's wrong with him! Why the hell would you lock him up with consumptives?
Why have Hox's gang just got coshes when they had guns before?
Oh look, suddenly they're back...with guns.
Why in hell's name would Dark announce to his religious superior that he'd just lost his faith, IN THE MIDDLE OF TRYING TO PERSUADE HIM THAT HE'S NOT A LOONY FOR CLAIMING THAT THE CITY IS PACKED WITH SUICIDE BOMBERS???
'Cauchemar had got back to his feet, and the gun was back in his hand' - pretty careless of the Doctor to let THAT happen.
How lucky the hideously-deformed, covered-in-other-people's-wriggling-fingers baby accidentally happens to get shot dead.
Oh god. The (Eighth! And pretty fit in every sense of the word) Doctor is getting the •••• beaten out of him by a dying man! TWICE! Why, WHY for heaven's sake?
Oh. Said dying man is now not merely dying but DISSOLVING. And he STILL manages to drag the (Eighth!!) Doctor off the edge of a cliff.
So a Diviner has 1% junk DNA (and the Doctor is 'withering' about the idea that the plebs won't be the same) and a Holiest 0%? Is that possible?
Humans have 98% junk DNA in their genome, while your typical bacteria only has about 2%. Junk DNA is not "junk" though. Much of it has very important functions, structural, regulatory, reproduction, etc,. But since all of these functions can probably be handled by ordinary enzymes and proteins, it is at least concievable to have organisms without any junk DNA.
Small amendment to my comment. DNA strands need to have a type of junk DNA called telomeres at the end of the strands. The systems that duplicate DNA cannot go all the way to the end, so the telomeres are there to be harmlessly sacrificed and preserve the genetic information. That's for life evolved on Earth of course, life evolved elsewhere might not have that problem. In any case, telomeres represent much less than 1% of the DNA in the cells.
Junk DNA is not "junk" though
Yeah, I did notice that fact had come to light since this thing was written.
all of these functions can probably be handled by ordinary enzymes and proteins, it is at least concievable to have organisms without any junk DNA.
Ah. I was hoping Vanishing Point had been proved deluded gibberish by now. (Scientifically speaking, of course - as far as I'm concerned all this god-gene stuff is obviously deluded gibberish.)
That's for life evolved on Earth of course, life evolved elsewhere might not have that problem
These people are the result of taking humans and experimenting on 'em till their junk DNA has been removed and alien souls have been stuffed into the bodies. For, um, some reason.
'The Doctor, after more than a century of nothing but humans for company, had become hell-bent on meeting as many googly-eyed monsters as possible' - hey, he had several alien encounters during his Century Of Hell, didn't he?
Though to be fair, most of 'em looked boringly human.
Oh god. The (Eighth! And pretty fit in every sense of the word) Doctor is getting the •••• beaten out of him by a dying man! TWICE! Why, WHY for heaven's sake?
Endgame made it PERFECTLY CLEAR that amnesia didn't affect his brilliant combat skills...