In article <337B19C3.1B60 at ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr>, athel at ir2cbm.cnrs-mrs.fr wrote:
>> As we have now received the May issue of Nature Biotechnology and as he
> has been too modest (or too busy) to answer my question
... ah, yes, fantastically ,modest ... (Sorry for the was a long delay in
replying. )
>> It was in about 1970 that I first heard a lecturer from the drug
> industry announcing that "yes, until now, it has been mainly a matter of
> hit and miss with random screening of haphazardly selected compounds,
> but in the future we'll do much better because we'll *design* the
> drugs". A quarter of a century has passed, but it is still largely a
> matter of hit and miss, and industry spokesmen continue to speak with
> great confidence about how the latest trendy approach is going to make
> it all more reliable.
This is quite true. Neverthtless, the hit and miss has hit sometimes ...
>> The other point is that the cost of the cock ups in biotechnology over
> the past two decades has been almost inconceivably huge. Buildings
> built, salaries paid, chemicals wasted, experimental animals killed,
> scientists out of the main stream put out to pasture, university
> departments doing old-fashioned work closed down or merged with their
> trendier neighbours... If all this is added up it is far from clear that
> the benefits have been greater than the costs.
>
I do not think that this is due to mistaken ideas about the nature of the
control of living systems is much as the relative value society puits of
politial and scientific skill. The people running the world are the ones
who run the committees, not those who run the experiments.
...PFK example snipped ...
>> Maybe this won't matter. Maybe there will be just enough fruit to
> convince the politicians and investors that they are getting something
> for their money. But maybe not. What then?
>> Athel
Please do not confuse the morivations of politicians and investors!
Seriously, I am sure that it *does* matter that most scientists are
labouring under false assumptions, and one day it will catch up with them.
I tried to make this point in the commentary. Yes, it is important, and
the faster we can make people believe it the better. But science can
continue even in the face of error, and be productive. Just not as
productive. After all, Columbus had the diameter of the Earth off by about
30%, and he did OK.
--
William Bains
