>> They do not contain information. They do not possess within themselves
>> the essence of whatever useful morphological traits we associate with
them.
>> There's simply nothing in there to patent.
>>
>
>So in other words, we don't have to worry about
>genetic engineering, since genes don't do anything,
>and if they did, we'd just have to define it as
>something else. Any successful products of genetic
>engineering are a mass hallicination.
Hey, you said it, not me.
All I've said is that the influence of genes over our development doesn't mean they actually determine any structures or behaviors. I've got the Y chromosome. Does that mean the Y chromosome determines the structure of my balls? No-- What it means is that whatever it is that determines male sexuality is activated when the Y is present and inactivated when it's not. As to the nature of this causal agent, we've got two possibilities. Either it somehow arises from the interaction of genes and proteins, or it involves memory-based holistic fields. Biologists mainly favor the former possibility, but that's just intellectual inertia. (There's also the idea that these fields are Platonically given, but we can safely dismiss this view, along with vitalism, as inherently anti-scientific.)
There are exactly two things that we know about genes. One, they provide the template for amino acid chains. Two, they differentiate individuals from each other. Genes determine which causal pathway the developing organism will travel. It's like a hilltop carved with channels leading down the slope (Waddington). If you get nudged a little to the left, you go down one set of channels. If you get nudged a little to the right, you go down another set. Genes do the nudging. That's it.
Find me a biologist who objects to this statement.
Ted Dace
>Forgive me, but this is just silly. Pure sophistry
>(in it's vernacular, not it's historical, sense...)
>
>Jim Baird