In article <5ksijc$s2 at mserv1.dl.ac.uk>, David Fell
<David.Fell at gesbi.u-bordeaux2.fr> wrote:
> Since Athel Cornish-Bowden has drawn attention to unwarranted faith in
> strong genetic determinism in the pages of Nature Biotechnology, I thought
> it was worth pointing out in this newsgroup that they have allowed the
> opposition a few words, in the form of a Commentary article by Richard C
> Strohman (The coming Kuhnian revolution in biology, Nature Biotechnology,
> 15, 194-200, 1997). My thanks to Jean-Pierre Mazat for making me aware of
> this article.
..snip..
> Take a read, and share your reactions with the group.
>> David Fell
>> =======================================================
> David Fell, daf at bms.brookes.ac.uk (usual & current)
> GESBI, UFR de Biochimie, Universite de Bordeaux II,
> 146 rue Leo Saignat, 33076 Bordeaux CEDEX, FRANCE.
>David.Fell at u-bordeaux2.fr (April-June '97)
I am sure Strohman is right in general - the biotechnology industry is
over-enthusiastic about genes. But genes work - you can clone things, and
use them as therapeutics, diagnostics, drug discovery tools or other
profitable products. Let's not confuse the future of science (which is a
critical concern for us) from the present of industry.
Nature Bio/technology has had lots of letters saying, in essence, 'why did
you publish this thing in an industry newsletter?' One answer, obviously,
is that it is a research journal, not an industry newsletter. But I am
sure that Strohman's message would have gone down much better if rather
than a Jeremiad he had couched the message in terms of 'If you think genes
were neat, just look what is coming next!'
William Bains
--
William Bains
