Genes are critical for setting up learning but are insufficient to fully explain how an organism functions, given the complexity of 150 trillion cells and 20,000 proteins.

“The genes? There's only three billion base pairs in the genes. Not nearly enough. We only have 20,000 proteins. How could 20,000 make 150 trillion? They couldn't. Genes are critical. They set us up to learn, but they're not enough to tell us how we work.”