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Biotech Science

Freeman Dyson On Open Source Biology 118

Posted by kdawson 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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Freeman Dyson On Open Source Biology More

Freeman Dyson On Open Source Biology

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  • Just great (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you think that penis-enlargement spam is bad now, just imagine when how bad it will be once "open source biology" takes off
    • We could be talking a bout REAL viral marketing ... but back to TFA:

      "Open Source sharing will be extended from the exchange of software to the exchange of genes. "

      Doctors have been fixing the open sores from the exchange of genetic material for decades with a dose of penicillin.

      Of course, its a different story if you caught "Hong Kong Dong."

      On a business trip to the Orient, Joe decided to spend his last night having wild sex with a Geisha Girl.

      Three weeks later, he noticed a very weird green, festeri

  • This analogy is flawed. The Open Source community creates code from ideas to create programs and systems. In the Biohacking world, genetic code is copied from one system into another system (with fingers crossed) in the hopes that something good happens. Programmers tend to understand the systems on which their code runs. The biohackers struggle with how their code will impact their systems in terms of "gene expression" and generational interactions.

    Sure biohackers are creating new organisms, but it

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Aladrin ( 926209 )
      You've obviously never seen the work of a bad programmer or a good biohacker. Reserve your judgement until you have. (It may be some years, though, as the latter doesn't exist yet, just as programmers didn't exist at one point, either.)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by WiFiBro ( 784621 )
        "You've obviously never seen the work of a bad programmer or a good biohacker. "
        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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30, 2007 @04:15PM (#19701713)
      "The biohackers struggle with how their code will impact their systems in terms of "gene expression" and generational interactions. "

      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.

    • >> This analogy is flawed. The Open Source community creates code from ideas to create programs and systems. In the Biohacking world, genetic code is copied from one system into another system

      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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jstomel ( 985001 )

      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.

    • I notice that this article in Alternatives pays due respect to the esteemed Mr. Godwin and his law from the very beginning.
    • Well the field of Synthetic biology is picking up fast. http://computationalbiologynews.blogspot.com/2007/ 06/sythetic-biology-milestone-genome.html [blogspot.com] talks about a recent work in this field.
    • so it isn't open source- it is more like copyright infringement..... maybe we need a Genetic Industry Artists Association (GIAA) to protect it and sue 10 year old girls and grandmas for having illegal genes.

  • The future (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Saturday June 30, 2007 @03:05PM (#19701315) Journal
    Ahhhh, I love when these discussions that come up. The "Luddites" come out against this, claiming we are playing god. The "Technophiles" come out and tell us how we must embrace this. Both sides yell so loud that the moderate (and correct) "proceed with caution" crowd gets drowned out.

    • Re:The future (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Elemenope ( 905108 ) on Saturday June 30, 2007 @03:42PM (#19701529)

      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.

      • Re:The future (Score:4, Insightful)

        by HiThere ( 15173 ) <charleshixsn.earthlink@net> on Saturday June 30, 2007 @04:17PM (#19701723)
        The problem is, with the invention of the atomic bomb, et. seq., we have entered an unstable state. Though my instinct is to play conservative, given my reading of the current geo-political state we have a expectable duration as a species measurable in a small finite number of years. I put it at on the close order of two decades (with large error bars).

        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.

        • Re:The future (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Elemenope ( 905108 ) on Saturday June 30, 2007 @05:02PM (#19701911)

          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).

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by DogDude ( 805747 )
          The overarching problem with the human race is simple overpopulation (not enough food, not enough medicine, not enough energy, not enough fresh water, etc.).

          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
        • Supposing humanity does enter some sort of biological/technological/war Armageddon, and 80% of the Earth's population is killed. Does this mean the end of humanity? There are still over a billion people left on earth.
      • I think it is important to proceed with an open mind. Not every "biohacker" is looking for the creation of novel organisms or even a directly applicable end product. As one who would be classified into this category by some, I know that many many more of biotech applications are used simply to understand systems more deeply. For example, say I want to better understand some pest tolerance pathway in a plant. One of the best ways to understand the system insert a special bit of nucleotide sequence into a pla

        • 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

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by syousef ( 465911 )
        Your argument is flawed. Computers can only model based on what we've learnt from real experiments. Without that data the models are useless. So a halt on biotech research until the computers can "model it all" actually starves researchers of the data required to program the machines.

        We should certainly be proceeding more slowly and modeling what we can but modeling will never replace actual experimentation.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by smchris ( 464899 )
      Ahhhh, I love when these discussions that come up. The "Luddites" come out against this, claiming we are playing god.

      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)

    by microsoft_hater ( 1101657 ) on Saturday June 30, 2007 @03:25PM (#19701445)
    He also denies human induced global warming. Great scientists are, of course, always great scientists... But, I think it is time for Freeman to go back to church.

    • Oh, please... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by halivar ( 535827 )
      Who are you to tell me who the scientists are and are not?

      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.

      Great scientists are, of course, always great scientists...

      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

      • I also disagree with Dyson's theories. I just take strong exception to the GP's hand-waving dismissal of them.
      • His chosen field of study, incidentally, is not biology.

        I'm sure Dyson is great in his field, but lately, whenever he's been brought to my attention (usually in the context of GW or his views on religion, not physics or mathematics), he's been wrong far more often than he's been right.

    • Re:Dyson's predictions with a grain of salt, pleas (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      He also denies human induced global warming.

      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
      • As soon as the GCMs actually start predicting (accurately) the very pronounced 100ky cycles of climate change over the last million years or so

        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)

    by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Saturday June 30, 2007 @03:27PM (#19701453)

    the possible end to the Darwinian era
    Finally the Intelligent Designers will be right.

     
  • Gene sharing must be exercised with caution. We wouldn't want those self-sterilizing genes that are in Monsanto's seeds ending up in biosphere at large, would we?
    • I would imagine that any specimens that had self-sterilization as a trait would have a hard time perpetuating that particular trait ;).
    • Don't care. If something is self sterilising it'll die out quite naturally, to be replaced by something fitter to survive.
       
    • that'll be the future of drm :)

      people will go to lengths to remove the sterile-ness from software, er, genes that they've got. unfortunately this might be harder than breaking drm, since it may require some serious equipment...
  • Quote from the linked article: "That cell, anticipating Bill Gates by three billion years, separated itself from the community and refused to share."

    Bill Gates is one of the most disliked people on earth for his refusal to finish his products, and his reliance on adversarial business tactics.

    See Microsoft Memories [tomevslin.com]. See Another Bill Gates Meets Satan story [scripting.com].

    Several years ago, a short piece in The Atlantic Monthly, a respected U.S. magazine, compared Bill Gates to Satan. I'm guessing Satan found that

  • Information Technology (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mcrbids ( 148650 ) on Saturday June 30, 2007 @03:43PM (#19701537) Journal
    At its heart, the science of Information Technology will grow and consume all other industries. Biology is a form of information technology - the information contained in the DNA/RNA and mitochondria define the outcome of the biological organism - they are the software that comprises us.

    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)

      by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Saturday June 30, 2007 @03:59PM (#19701625)
      The future of "the technological singularity":

      http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/ 30/1247249 [slashdot.org]

      HTH

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by naoursla ( 99850 )
      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.

      The characters in Charles Strauss's novel Accelerando wonder this very thing ev

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Guppy ( 12314 )

        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

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by naoursla ( 99850 )
          That is a fair response and suggests that the singularity happens at the point that humanity is unable to successfully adapt to the change.
  • This "Freeman" fellow doesn't inspire Gordon Freeman-like expirements, we should be ok.

  • He's got it backwards (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Saturday June 30, 2007 @03:53PM (#19701587)
    He seems to think that genes exist to serve species.

     
    • Bingo.

  • Deep deep flaws in the analogy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Saturday June 30, 2007 @03:58PM (#19701615)
    This summary would leave any biologist apoplectic for its flaws:

    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.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by dfetter ( 2035 )
      Good points here, but you've left out one really important one: there already
      is horizontal gene flow. Cross-breeding does it, and it's more common
      that you usually think.

      Viruses reproduce by "horizontal gene flow."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by naoursla ( 99850 )
      Yep. Free horizontal gene sharing is as completely ludicous and unreasonable as his earlier idea of a DysonSphere.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by rachit ( 163465 )

      1. Sex IS sharing. It's the ultimate cross-fertilization (literally).
      Unfortunately, its not that easy to get women to share their source. And when they go completely open-source, you don't want to use the software anyway, probably viruses lurking in there somewhere.

    • 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.
      HA! If that were true hamburger eaters would starting resembling cows... Oh wait...

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's not necessarily flawed in its suggestions for what the post-darwinian era actually means to the deepest extent. sex between humans is only sharing between homo sapiens, not genes from other species, meaning your second point (2.), is incorrect as HGT would allow us to import genes from other species for gene therapy in parts of our bodies that need it to treat a disease, or cosmetically like something genetically Botox, etc. The difference here is that bio-engineers would aim to insert genes in live ti

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by xy ( 49954 )
      Y'all should go read the original material by Woese (& Goldenfeld) before making asinie statements about science you clearly don't understand. Though, a large part of that is because Dyson's explanations of the stuff really aren't that good; or more accurately, they aren't very deep, and these are complex issues that require a deep reading to understand. The couple paragraphs Dyson presents are a reasonably good summary, but if you're not inclined to take what he says at face value there's no depth th
    • It is BS in more ways: It neglects that physics is what makes biologies current advances possible. Also I consider biotechnology just a different approach to nanotechnology(as in molecular scale), meaning that biotechnology is just using existing systems to create new ones. For that reason i think nanotech will be more fruitful eventually. (perhaps he is using biology as a nomer for that, but i think that would be a misnomer.)
      Evolution is not exactly a good design process, the reason plants are not black(or
  • These are the words of the idealistic researcher, before their work is bought out by the forces of concentrated capital power, as usual.
    • I'm thinking that this time it will be Durex looking to buy out the technology. There is a potentially large untapped market in bestiality, and making inter-species genetic sharing a possibility will cause any sensible zoophile to start buying.

  • Dyson needs to stick to physics (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quixote9 ( 999874 ) on Saturday June 30, 2007 @04:09PM (#19701689) Homepage
    That's funny, which is how I assume he meant it. As a serious statement, it would be totally laughable except that a few people who know even less are going to say, "Ooh, Freeman Dyson. Must be good."

    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.
  • ..the nine assed monkey?
  • Forget about Freeman!
  • That cell, anticipating Bill Gates by three billion years, separated itself from the community and refused to share...

    I'm not a particular fan of Microsoft business practices, but come on, when are people going to give up this crap. Sure, Bill Gates is the richest man on the planet, but he has also given away more money to philanthropy than any man on the planet. I'm sure personality-wise he's just as much an asshole as Steve Jobs in person, but one thing he is NOT is stingy.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by smchris ( 464899 )
      Bill Gates is the richest man on the planet, but he has also given away more money to philanthropy than any man on the planet.

      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?

    • Yeah, Philanthropy... Right [latimes.com].

      Giving away 5% to charity is a much better business decision than paying taxes. Especially when you can invest the other 95% in some of the nastiest companies in the world.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dahamma ( 304068 )
      Ha. Say even the *slightest* positive thing about Bill Gates (even if it's in the same sentence as "I'm sure he's an asshole in person") and there's always mindless zealot at /. to mod you down. "Overrated"? By whom? That was the only rating my post got...
  • sounds a little too religious for me...

  • "[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...


    Sounds a little like NGE [wikipedia.org], but whats this? No giant robots? The future is grim indeed.
  • Dyson's moaning about rural poverty misses the point, witness http://www.endofsuburbia.com/ [endofsuburbia.com] "Who's going to pay for the food stamps" for the suburban-poor, that's OUR problem ! Once upon a time there were peasants with pigs and chickens or rice, whatever. The Chinese government then said to the peasant, look, come to the city, we will give you FREE ROOM AND BOARD in a dorm within bicycle-range of work, for the few years that your are optimally productive, and at the end of this time you can take your few h

  • > 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.

    In all honesty I would have to say that that cell hasn't changed much between then and now.

    Yes, I guess I am in a grumpy mood. WHAT'S IT TO YA?
  • ...that intelligence is pathological in a species. I suggest it always leads to self-extinction. Considering that we are uniquely intelligent, perhaps there are actually genetic mechanisms checking the evolution of intelligence and we somehow got off the reservation. Anyway, once again, nature is not an idiot, and if nature, evolution, speciated, she did it early and there is most probably a very good reason for it. Taking genes and sticking them into our own genome in a sort of all-genes-are-equal bio-comm

    • Anyway, once again, nature is not an idiot, and if nature, evolution, speciated, she did it early and there is most probably a very good reason for it.

      Good according to whom? In evolution there is only one good - if you survive you get to dictate the future genetic landscape. That's it. Anything else is you projecting your own value system onto nature.

      Taking genes and sticking them into our own genome in a sort of all-genes-are-equal bio-communism is most likely going to destroy us.

      Meaningless - destroy

  • one piece of the fluffburb of a kind. So many words, so zero content...
  • If you're a cactus in an arid desert you really don't want your offspring to include "water-loving" genes from the plants in the oasis next door. And visa-versa.

    Likewise, if you're working on the Linux kernel, you don't want your next release to include half the functionality of Open Office. And visa-versa.

    The original article is very amusing science fiction.

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