David and Jean-Pierre are right: the article by Richard C Strohman in
Nature Biotechnology 15, 194-200 (1997) is well worth a read. A lot more
worth a read than I thought when I first saw it, when I didn't get past
the first few paragraphs as I was put off by all the philosophical
verbiage that camouflages some important points that molecular
biologists ought to consider seriously. Even without the philosophy,
however, I doubt whether many of them would read it (any more than they
pay a lot of attention to this news group); with the philosophy I would
say there is no hope.
I'm also a bit worried about a couple of disingenuous references to
Richard Feynman that seem intended to associate him with modern streams
in the philosophy of science. (Significantly, the second mention of
Feynman gives no direct reference, but only a reference to someone else
writing about him). My reading of Feynman always gave me the impression
that he held philosophers of science in the utmost contempt. (I am
reminded of the efforts of the French conservatives in the current
election to convince themselves and the voters that the results of the
recent British election represent a triumph for their own ideas).
Having said all that, there are a lot of useful points in Strohman's
article, and his Fig. 1 does indeed look a lot like the sort of slides
one can see in the introductory parts of some of Hans Westerhoff's
lectures. It would be nice to know what Hans himself thinks.
Another quotation that has a lot to do with how we (as biologists with a
systemic view) see biotechnology:
"Our students of the future will welcome this return to the knowable,
but presently unexplored, level of the cell... We must find ways to
nurture this return, in the spirit of Eddington, and not merely from the
point of view of a new thrust in biotechnology. Indeed, precisely
because a holistic biology is seen to be counterproductive to the needs
of technology this return will be especially difficult.
"But biotechnology will ultimately and usefully be better served by
following the spirit of Eddington, by attempting to provide enough time
and intellectual space for those who want to invest themselves in
exploration of levels beyond the gene independently of any quick
promises for still quicker solutions to extremely complex problems."
This goes, I think very much in the spirit of what I have tried to argue
in earlier postings on similar subjects, that what is truly
counterproductive to the needs of biotechnology is the obsession with
the search for a quick fix in the context of an oversimplified model.
Athel
