The Human Genome Project
This NYT article about the Human Genome Project says,
…after 10 years of effort, geneticists are almost back to square one in knowing where to look for the roots of common disease.
The expectation that knowledge equates to resolution is part of the contemporary mindset, where concept equals expression.
… with most diseases, the common variants have turned out to explain just a fraction of the genetic risk. It now seems more likely that each common disease is mostly caused by large numbers of rare variants, ones too rare to have been cataloged…
The problem arises in raising hopes and playing to the crowd (media), which causes scientists to overstate the potentials of their enterprise and diminish the difficulties. In some ways this diminishes science itself.
The public wants hope, the media wants a feel good sound bite, so some scientists will abide. Hollywood’s “high concept” approach to pitching films has permeated the culture.
The value of understanding, even if we are currently powerless to do much, is still of value though:
The slowly emerging explanation is that humans and other animals have much the same set of protein-coding genes, but the human set is regulated in a much more complicated way, through elaborate use of DNA’s companion molecule, RNA.
What this scientist says about genome mapping and hopes for cures could be a useful credo:
“One can prefer to be an optimist or a pessimist, but the best approach is to be an empiricist.”
