genetic information (was Re: Computation and Human Experience (RRE)

[Dace]

-----Original Message-----
From: Gordon Fitch
>I've read some material here
>and there by scientists cautioning people that knowing the
>order of bases and genes does not tell us how they work or
>what they do under different circumstances.  On the other
>hand, the media by and large seem to prefer the simplistic
>mode: tell us your genes and we'll tell you everything
>there is to know about you, including your thoughts and life
>history.  The latter would be a tempting stance for genetic
>researchers to pretend to take, since (if believed, as
>reporters and editors seem to want to do) it would get them
>much more repute, power, and money.

The media are doing their usual job of distorting the issue in favor of big
business.  The gene privatizers to a large extent depend on the notion that
there's some kind of magic formula in DNA, and if word gets out that this is
no Book of Life or instruction manual for the body, then patenting it as
"intellectual property" doesn't make any sense.  You can't justify patenting
life unless it's seen as being a sort of warm-up for technology, with
animals as furry automobiles and humans as proto-computers.  This delusion
was generated by scientists, but it lost its hold over researchers as they
began to glimpse the real nature of the double helix.  Alas, instead of
going the way of phrenology and the homunculus, the myth of the bodymachine
is serving to anaesthetize people to the horror of putting up life for sale.

Ted