Thread: How many genes really are in human genome?

There is scientific researches, which is trusted by majority of scientists, that human genome contains less
than 30.000 genes.The same researches state that there is genetic difference between chimps and humans less than 95% and difference in humans is even less-just few hundreds of genes.But what actually
means genes and what they define?For example there
are millions of people who have dissimilar facial features and you could easily recognize different people.Taking in account that it's not very easy to make difference between twins for average person,facial features mostly genetically programed.
In this case there should be millions of genes which define faces alone.And millions of other genes which define many other things such as body properties,intelligence,character,etc.How could you explain it?

I understand how it can be confusing. Most science books I've read claim 30,000 genes.

You seem to be confused about terminology.

Say you have a gene that determines eye colour (there are in reality quite a few that interact to determine eye colour). Now each person has one version of that gene, but they don't all have identical alleles.

A gene is more like a location on a strand of DNA associated with a certain kind of function. The variable sequences that can constitute that gene are called alleles. Also, most traits like facial features are determined by a variety of genes and environmental factors, so it isn't just the variation of alleles for the same genes but also the multiple combinations that can be made.

Alternative splicing of genes and epigenetics also represent two broad mechanisms by which phenotypic variation can arise in a population of organisms which are genetically highly homologous.

Tridimity :-D