FRAGMENT FROM NATURE contemplates the question of the relationship of genotype to phenotype; many of us consider this to be a direct relationship. But it turns out to be less clear. The view that genes are the all-powerful factors that determine phenotype has been shockingly undermined with new thinking in recent years, in ways unimaginable 50 years ago. Entwined into this have been semantic assumptions that confounded a clearer view: namely, that the parts alone cannot do much, but it is the contextual sum of the parts that make organisms what they are. White Swan: obvious with hindsight, perhaps.