If DNA tells your body how to build itself, it makes sense in my head that one day, we can take a sample of DNA from a long dead person, run it through a computer and come up with an accurate depiction of what they looked like. (I realize we can get close by using the person’s skull and whatnot. But that doesn’t tell us skin tone, hair color, nose shape, eye color etc.)
Is this possible? Why or why not? And if it is, how close are we?
Comments
5-50 years
Not possible. Many of the traits you are mentioning are controlled by many genes and we don’t know or understand which ones or how they interact. Also many traits are the outcome of an interaction between the genes and the environment. We might be able to say some simple things—red hair, curly hair—but not an accurate description of what a person looked like.
Never? At best you might be able to predict a range of possibilities based on large data bases, but gene expression varies from individual to individual due to a variety of factors, so an exact description is unlikely to ever be possible.
What if someone had the genes for tall stature but was subjected to malnutrition?
Too many environmental factors, DNA would only yield an “ideal” of the individual without external factors such as trauma, nutrition, and disease
E.G. Joseph stalin famously had a gimp leg and arm due to a childhood vehicle accident. There’s more than a few historical figures what had notably pockmarked faces from cases of smallpox and other disease.
Aren’t we getting that with Parabon Nanolabs… Or am I on the wrong cart of this thought train?