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Freeman Dyson On Open Source Biology
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Jun 30, 2007 02:52 PM
from the return-to-pre-darwinian-life dept.
from the return-to-pre-darwinian-life dept.
kripkenstein sends us an article by Freeman Dyson in the NY Review of Books, in which the eminent physicist and big thinker takes on the possible end to the Darwinian era of speciation that has endured 3 billion years on this planet. He discusses the history and future of biology in terms that many in this community will find familiar: "[We can speculate about] a golden age... when horizontal gene transfer was universal and separate species did not yet exist. Life was then a community of cells of various kinds, sharing their genetic information... Evolution could be rapid... But then, one evil day, a cell resembling a primitive bacterium happened to find itself one jump ahead of its neighbors in efficiency. That cell, anticipating Bill Gates by three billion years, separated itself from the community and refused to share... [But] now, as Homo sapiens domesticates the new biotechnology, we are reviving the ancient... practice of horizontal gene transfer, moving genes easily from microbes to plants and animals, blurring the boundaries between species. We are moving rapidly into the post-Darwinian era, when... the rules of Open Source sharing will be extended from the exchange of software to the exchange of genes. Then the evolution of life will once again be communal, as it was in the good old days before separate species and intellectual property were invented."
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Just great (Score:2, Funny)
Open Source != Gene Hacking (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure biohackers are creating new organisms, but it
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However good the biohacker, they have to do with faulty techniques, lack of funding for proper checking of insertion errors, and a limited understanding of the genome. Need i say 'junk DNA' ?
Re:Open Source == Gene Hacking (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, nowadays, with huge operating systems like Vista, nobody knows anymore what impact their code will have, from security breaches to DoS to unexplainable bugs. Couple this with bugs in the processors themselves (Intel, anyone?), with constant vendor patches, and you have developers that struggle with how their code will impact their systems in terms of features and interactions.
"Programmers tend to understand the systems on which their code runs."
Those days of happy mathematical proofs on computing systems in paper are gone. Today we have the sad ordeal of testing a system like if it was small modification in a mind-boggling complex beast created randomly. A simple sorting algorithm implementation can fail without any sensible reason, because of an obscure detail of the implementation of your processor or operating system.
Parent
It's actually quite a strong analogy (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't find it flawed at all.
Free and Open Source Software is concerned not with the creation of a bag of abstract ideas, but a bag (or pyramid) of software components of various kinds (libraries, classes, utilities, etc). Those components are copied around from one application to another very freely, and not r
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Sure biohackers are creating new organisms, but it isn't the same as creating it from scratch and understanding both the system and how the system interact with other systems
If you page down a few stories here you will find an article on how Creig Venture is trying to create the first organism designed from the bottom up, giving us a biotechnological platform where we understand and purposely included all elements involved. It is not an unreasonable extrapolation to assume that in the future biohackers will have access to which are thoroughly understood.
The future (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The future (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. 'Proceed with caution' is the best method for approaching technological progress. I must say though that on this one I sympathize much more with the technophobic instinct than usual, as it might not be possible to gauge just how cautious a truly cautious approach would need to be. Ecosystems (and gene sharing within them) are vastly more complicated than we can at present hope to model down to the probable impact of the introduction of a new or altered phenotype. I would say that proper caution would be to wait until computer science has yielded robust enough modeling algorithms and badassed enough machines to run them on to have a better handle upon what exactly we might be monkeying with.
Of course, human curiosity and human greed will outstrip any sense of caution quite quickly if these technologies become as prolific as Dyson predicts.
Parent
Re:The future (Score:4, Insightful)
Given this, it becomes urgent to do SOMETHING that will move us to a state that has a longer expected duration. This means taking risks that would, in other circumstances, be quite reckless. This means pushing AI, nano-technology, space-travel, and experimental biology. Space travel seems like the most likely solution, once we achieve it. The problem is that it's a very difficult problem, as there is a need for self-sufficient colonies to avoid the existential risk problem. Preferably mobile self-sufficient colonies that can subsist in areas with very poor sunlight (i.e., starlight) for multiple centuries. (We're talking about a SLOW rate of dispersion, to save energy.) They would probably need to move slowly enough to scavange from bodies in the Oort cloud and beyond. How this could be financed is a real question.
Nano-technology would be an enabling technology here, as well as a constant threat. But it's potentially so useful, that I can't imagine avoiding it.
AI is a potential alternate way of surviving. If large organizations were controlled by AIs that had socially benevolent goals, then the existential risks would decline VERY significantly. Unfortunately, AIs that had goals taht were not socially benevolent could be another quick route to extinction.
Biology here is a bit of a question mark. It could certainly pose an existential risk, but it already does. And it might be necessary for self-sufficient space colonies. So it might be that you can't get to your desired destination without passing this goal post.
As such, I must say that:
1) We are already in a state of existential risk
2) Advanced biology might make things more threatening, but it may be a necessary step to advancing past the heightened existential risk.
Parent
Re:The future (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but I'm not in the general practice of putting out fires by dousing them with gasoline. Rushing headlong into further destabilization in the hopes we might collectively trip and fall into a technological singularity seems to me like a very slip-shod way to approach the future.
I agree that for the first time probably in human history we are presented with a significant species existential risk factor. However, I think that rampant garage-and-basement biotechnology for profit is a step in the wrong direction, likely introducing more serious risks and further destabilizations, without much promise of lowering other risks or minimizing existing systemic instabilities. I think, as I stated in my original post, that computer science (and by extension, probably AI) provide the least risky course to pursue, because the tools they provide would enable a better predictive model for planned changes in other areas. I think it best to understand the nature of the systems we are messing with before we start monkeying around with the really fun stuff (like redesigning ourselves and our biosphere).
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If the human species doesn't wise up and voluntarily stop the population growth, some "force of nature" will take care of things. I'm leaning towards either a massive anti-biotic resistant bacteria outbreak, or simple and stupid war.
Either way, things aren't dire for the planet or even the species. Things may be dire for a lot of individuals, thoug
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I agree that at first this sort of capability will be used for exploration; what I'm chiefly concerned with is when it starts to be turned towards fun and profit (not necessarily in that order). After all, it is very rare that knowledge does not lead to the potential for utility, which if producible and packageable will undoubtedly generate a product demand. It is decently easy to maintain one's scruples in an earnest pursuit of knowledge and understanding; certainly less so in the pursuit of pleasure and m
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On the other hand, I can remember an article in the 60s advising amateur radio operators that if they were _really_ nice to their local electricity provider, maybe one of the field techs would pour off a gallon of transformer oil for their transmitter's dummy load [tempe.gov].
Who'd a thunk there was anything wrong with PCBs?
Dyson's predictions with a grain of salt, please! (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, please... (Score:2, Interesting)
Until you supply the appropriate credentials and/or published journal articles proving your authority in the field, I'll take your comments with the same grain of salt.
Ugh. Platitudinous drivel. What the heck is a great scientist? Someone who agrees with the scientific establishment on every single issue? So, in your opinion, can we now state that Sir Isaac Newton was not a great scientist be
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Re:Dyson's predictions with a grain of salt, pleas (Score:2, Informative)
That's no surprise at all, because all honest scientists are honour-bound to adhere to the scientific method, which has an extremely strict M.O.. That M.O. prevents them from making handwaving interpretations and supporting what SEEMS to be the right answer, but is in fact not yet substantiated by current GCMs. Short-term predictions mean nothing when they're just ripples on a widely varying curve.
As soon as the GCMs actually start predicting (accurately) the ve
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Done.
and also explain accurately how the coldest epocs in the history of the planet happened to coincide with CO2 levels many dozens of times greater than the current ones
Since that didn't happen, no explanation is required. CO2 levels are positively associated with warming climate throughout the paleoclimate record.
Finally! (Score:3, Funny)
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If this is what it takes for them to be right, I'm fairly sure many of them would much rather be wrong.
Have to be careful (Score:2)
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Information Technology (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not written in a language easily understood by humanity, but once the concepts of how things really work together are clearly understood, it won't be long before a high-level language can be developed to define the requested behavior and structures can then be "compiled" into an organism.
This is the fusion of biology and information technology commonly called the technology singularity [wikipedia.org] and which, I'm convinced, is happening all around us.
Slow at first, growing towards advancing rapidly. I see it in software, networks, information technology, science, medical technology, and manufacturing. It's amazing, exciting, and thrillingly dangerous all at once. I honestly thing that we'll either pull it off, and move beyond evolution to create an entirely new form of life, or destroy ourselves and regress to bacteria, rodents, insect life.
Either way, we aren't in Kansas, anymore.
Re:Information Technology (Score:4, Insightful)
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06
HTH
Parent
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The characters in Charles Strauss's novel Accelerando wonder this very thing ev
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Funny thing about exponential curves: It always looks like you are always on the 'flat' part when you are looking towards the future. It is only when comparing to the past while ignoring the future that it looks like you are on the steep part, and that is true at any point in time. Unless "progress" ends up being a sigmoid curve, we will always be wondering if the Singularity has happened and if so when was the point it occurred.
There's one factor that keeps the curve from being completely scale-free though, the (relatively) fixed scales of the human observer. The spans of our lifetimes, reproductive cycle, the speed at which we learn and adapt have changed at linear rates (at best) that haven't kept up with the exponential expansion of our technology. Thus far we have been unable to effect substantial changes in our own selves -- human biology simply wasn't "designed" with upgrades in mind. More importantly, I don't think huma
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As Long As... (Score:2, Funny)
He's got it backwards (Score:4, Insightful)
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Deep deep flaws in the analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Sex IS sharing. It's the ultimate cross-fertilization (literally). Almost all organisms, including humans, openly and enthusiastically share DNA via this mechanism.
2. Horizontal gene flow is terribly terribly limiting in its utility. Once organism becomes more complex, you can't plug-and-play like you can with a bacteria.
3. Horizontal gene flow does not foster rapid evolution in the same way that sex does. Picking up snippets and fragments from another organism is not as powerful as cross-over in sex (which does a far far better job of doing a controlled recombination of complete plans)
3. No organism in the world can resist "sharing its genome." If pirating the DNA of others was really that great an idea, then the human digestive track would contain tools for pulling DNA out of hamburger. It really would not take much cellular machinery to engulf a target cell, deconstruct it, and co-opt its DNA. The fact that horizontal gene transfer doesn't occur outside of simple organism should be an strong evidence of its limitations.
As much as I enjoy Freeman Dyson, he really lost me on this one.
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is horizontal gene flow. Cross-breeding does it, and it's more common
that you usually think.
Viruses reproduce by "horizontal gene flow."
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Same As Ever (Score:2)
Dyson needs to stick to physics (Score:5, Insightful)
Like the commenter above said, biologists are just mixing and matching from organisms and hoping for the best. A simple regulatory cascade involves around sixty (60) proteins, and biologists have only the vaguest ideas about how to manipulate the process. And that's a big step up from even three years ago. Really. They have barely a clue. As a biologist who's taught college for decades, really, it's true.
Life was never "open source" in Dyson's sense. Horizontal gene transfer is always a rare event, even more so in multicellular eukaryotic organisms like, say, vertebrates or trees. Natural selection has always and will always operate because in order to survive, creatures have to be able to produce lots of offspring. However, there's not enough resources for all of them, and the ones less able to use the resources die. This would be true of any life, anywhere. It's not limited to Earth. Kind of like the speed of light is the same everywhere, and gravity operates everywhere.
Sure, people will get better and better at genetic engineering and biotech. And a good thing, too. Paralysis will become a thing of the past, as will blindness and failing organs. That's great. But it's not going to change life itself.
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How soon can we expect.. (Score:2)
Freeman? (Score:2)
Relevant to some sectors of computing (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually it does, but perhaps you don't.
Because those of us engaged in genetic programming research find it relevant to stuff that matters to us.
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It could be argued (as the original post did) that homosexuality is a kill-switch in some sense. From a biological programming point of
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If the sense is evolution, then there isn't a coherent sense of "meant" at all, because there is no "meant" in evolution, just past advantage in past environments.
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Yeah, _our_ money. (Speaking of tired, tired analogies)
Seriously, isn't being a Robber Baron a little uncoolly stale by about a hundred years? Carnegie built libraries. I don't know what Rockefeller did offhand. But under the category of "Robber Baron" hasn't the air of "asshole" followed them all down through history?