Cfrtjryk

up vote 5 down vote favorite I am learning about redundancy in genetics and I came across this statement in my textbook: more than one codon for an amino acid means that some codons are redundant - the process of protein synthesis could function without them. I understand that codons are used to make specific amino acids. Does the statement from my textbook mean that if there are two codons which code for the same amino acid that only one of the codons code for an amino acid and not both? I know the term reduntant means that in some cases - more than one codon can code for the same amino acid - but does it also mean that some codons are not used because another codon codes for the same amino acid? Thanks molecular-biology molecular-genetics codon genetic-code