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While I might agree with your general point that biology is not software, I think you might be being a little too pessimistic for the field as a whole. You don
by skosuri 14y ago
While I might agree with your general point that biology is not software, I think you might be being a little too pessimistic for the field as a whole. You don't need to predict the "outcome" as you define it. You just have to get the function you want. Plenty of people, even high school students and undergraduates, are "playing with nature's design."
- stiff 14y agoI am not necessarily pessimistic, I do believe smart people will be able to work those things out and some maybe even will put them to good use, I am just an opponent of oversimplifying problems and sceptical of metaphors. You say: You just have to get the function you want, I would put it more as You have to get just the function you want and I think this isn't as simple, especially when those artificial organisms start interacting with environments more complex than a test tube e.g. the human body. In this case, outside of the laboratory, I think it would be valuable to know what we are doing and not "play". This probably depends a lot on the context you would like to use those things in, but in general there are lots of warnings about potential unexpected interactions in descriptions of some of the parts and the practical projects seem to have lots of safety precautions too.