Lettera da Lhasa numero 69. Lo straordinario mondo nuovo delle biotecnologie
by Roberto Scaruffi
Dyson, F., Our Biotech Future, The New York Review of Books, 54 (12), 19 July 2007,
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20370
(Dyson, 19 July 2007).
Freeman Dyson
Woese, C. R., A New Biology for a New Century, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, June 2004, 68 (2), 173-186,
http://mmbr.asm.org/cgi/content/full/68/2/173
(Woese, June 2004).
Carl R. Woese
Goldenfeld, N., Woese, C., Biology's next revolution, 8 February 2007
http://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0702015v1
(Goldenfeld, 8 February 2007).
Nigel Goldenfeld, Carl Woese
(Dyson, 19 July 2007) introduce al nuovo straordinario mondo aperto dalle biotecnologie che stanno, in parte, divenendo alla portata di tutti, dunque dense di pericoli cui far fronte. Presenta poi (Woese, June 2004).
Le prospettive per l’esistenza umana ecologicamente sostenibile sono inimmaginabili:
“Within a few more decades, as the continued exploring of genomes gives us better knowledge of the architecture of living creatures, we shall be able to design new species of microbes and plants according to our needs. The way will then be open for green technology to do more cheaply and more cleanly many of the things that gray technology can do, and also to do many things that gray technology has failed to do. Green technology could replace most of our existing chemical industries and a large part of our mining and manufacturing industries. Genetically engineered earthworms could extract common metals such as aluminum and titanium from clay, and genetically engineered seaweed could extract magnesium or gold from seawater. Green technology could also achieve more extensive recycling of waste products and worn-out machines, with great benefit to the environment. An economic system based on green technology could come much closer to the goal of sustainability, using sunlight instead of fossil fuels as the primary source of energy. New species of termite could be engineered to chew up derelict automobiles instead of houses, and new species of tree could be engineered to convert carbon dioxide and sunlight into liquid fuels instead of cellulose.”
(Dyson, 19 July 2007)
I VerdiRossi sono spesso istericamente contro le biotecnologie. Evidentemente sono bracci politici di gruppi di interessi conservatori anziché di istanze davvero ecologiche. Il loro “ambientalismo” non sembra andare oltre il sogno di pannelli solari ricoprenti pianure e montagne: prospettive non davvero entusiasmanti neppure fossero d’una qualche economicità, cosa che non sono, pur potendo essere utilissimi per qualche casetta isolata. Al contrario, è proprio a livello di ambiente che le biotecnologie sono davvero risolutive un po’ a tutti i livelli:
“Before genetically modified termites and trees can be allowed to help solve our economic and environmental problems, great arguments will rage over the possible damage they may do. Many of the people who call themselves green are passionately opposed to green technology. But in the end, if the technology is developed carefully and deployed with sensitivity to human feelings, it is likely to be accepted by most of the people who will be affected by it, just as the equally unnatural and unfamiliar green technologies of milking cows and plowing soils and fermenting grapes were accepted by our ancestors long ago. I am not saying that the political acceptance of green technology will be quick or easy. I say only that green technology has enormous promise for preserving the balance of nature on this planet as well as for relieving human misery. Future generations of people raised from childhood with biotech toys and games will probably accept it more easily than we do. Nobody can predict how long it may take to try out the new technology in a thousand different ways and measure its costs and benefits.”
(Dyson, 19 July 2007)
(Woese, June 2004) affronta una molteplicità di questioni che vale la pena di vedersi senz’accontentarsi della sola sintesi di (Dyson, 19 July 2007). Vi si troverà, in dettaglio, il salto compiuto dalla biologia:
“A heavy price was paid for molecular biology's obsession with metaphysical reductionism. It stripped the organism from its environment; separated it from its history, from the evolutionary flow; and shredded it into parts to the extent that a sense of the whole—the whole cell, the whole multicellular organism, the biosphere—was effectively gone. Darwin saw biology as a "tangled bank", with all its aspects interconnected. Our task now is to resynthesize biology; put the organism back into its environment; connect it again to its evolutionary past; and let us feel that complex flow that is organism, evolution, and environment united. The time has come for biology to enter the nonlinear world.”
(Woese, June 2004)
Un fattore essenziale, a lungo sottostimato, per comprendere l’evoluzione è il Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT):
“One cellular system in particular is especially informative regarding HGT, and that is the translation apparatus. The translational componentry is a mix of molecules, some of which are highly refractory to horizontal gene displacement and others of which are relatively susceptible.”
(Woese, June 2004)
Non solo la biologia si è combinata e si combina con altri campi della conoscenza scientifica. Bensì si trova di fronte a scelte sia rispetto al suo sviluppo come specifica disciplina che alla società, al mondo, con cui inevitabilmente interagisce:
“Given the temper of the times, the entry of chemistry and physics into biology was inevitable. The technology that these sciences would introduce was not only welcome but very much needed. Also, biology was now well enough scientifically understood that it began to appeal to physicists. But the physics and chemistry that entered biology (especially the former) was a Trojan horse, something that would ultimately conquer biology from within and remake it in its own image. Biology would be totally fissioned, and its holistic side would be quashed. Biology would quickly become a science of lesser importance, for it had nothing fundamental to tell us about the world. Physics provided the ultimate explanations. Biology, as no more than complicated chemistry, was at the end of the line, merely providing baroque ornamentation on the great edifice of understanding that was physics—the hierarchy physics ">chemistry"> biology is burned into the thinking of all scientists, a pecking order that has done much to foster in society the (mistaken) notion that biology is only an applied science.
“In the last several decades we have seen the molecular reductionist reformulation of biology grind to a halt, its vision of the future spent, leaving us with only a gigantic whirring biotechnology machine. Biology today is little more than an engineering discipline. Thus, biology is at the point where it must choose between two paths: either continue on its current track, in which case it will become mired in the present, in application, or break free of reductionist hegemony, reintegrate itself, and press forward once more as a fundamental science. The latter course means an emphasis on holistic, "nonlinear," emergent biology—with understanding evolution and the nature of biological form as the primary, defining goals of a new biology.
“Society cannot tolerate a biology whose metaphysical base is outmoded and misleading: the society desperately needs to live in harmony with the rest of the living world, not with a biology that is a distorted and incomplete reflection of that world. Because it has been taught to accept the above hierarchy of the sciences, society today perceives biology as here to solve its problems, to change the living world. Society needs to appreciate that the real relationship between biology and the physical sciences is not hierarchical, but reciprocal: physics biology. Both physics and biology are primary windows on the world; they see the same gem but different facets thereof (and so inform one another). Knowing this, society will come to see that biology is here to understand the world, not primarily to change it. Biology's primary job is to teach us. In that realization lies our hope of learning to live in harmony with our planet.”
(Woese, June 2004)
(Goldenfeld, 8 February 2007), breve ma denso, ritorna sulla grande portata del HGT, ma anche sull’inevitabilità di altri strumenti di comprensione per organismi con marcate individualità.
Dyson, F., Our Biotech Future, The New York Review of Books, 54 (12), 19 July 2007,
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20370
(Dyson, 19 July 2007).
Freeman Dyson
Woese, C. R., A New Biology for a New Century, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, June 2004, 68 (2), 173-186,
http://mmbr.asm.org/cgi/content/full/68/2/173
(Woese, June 2004).
Carl R. Woese
Goldenfeld, N., Woese, C., Biology's next revolution, 8 February 2007
http://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0702015v1
(Goldenfeld, 8 February 2007).
Nigel Goldenfeld, Carl Woese
by Roberto Scaruffi
Dyson, F., Our Biotech Future, The New York Review of Books, 54 (12), 19 July 2007,
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20370
(Dyson, 19 July 2007).
Freeman Dyson
Woese, C. R., A New Biology for a New Century, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, June 2004, 68 (2), 173-186,
http://mmbr.asm.org/cgi/content/full/68/2/173
(Woese, June 2004).
Carl R. Woese
Goldenfeld, N., Woese, C., Biology's next revolution, 8 February 2007
http://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0702015v1
(Goldenfeld, 8 February 2007).
Nigel Goldenfeld, Carl Woese
(Dyson, 19 July 2007) introduce al nuovo straordinario mondo aperto dalle biotecnologie che stanno, in parte, divenendo alla portata di tutti, dunque dense di pericoli cui far fronte. Presenta poi (Woese, June 2004).
Le prospettive per l’esistenza umana ecologicamente sostenibile sono inimmaginabili:
“Within a few more decades, as the continued exploring of genomes gives us better knowledge of the architecture of living creatures, we shall be able to design new species of microbes and plants according to our needs. The way will then be open for green technology to do more cheaply and more cleanly many of the things that gray technology can do, and also to do many things that gray technology has failed to do. Green technology could replace most of our existing chemical industries and a large part of our mining and manufacturing industries. Genetically engineered earthworms could extract common metals such as aluminum and titanium from clay, and genetically engineered seaweed could extract magnesium or gold from seawater. Green technology could also achieve more extensive recycling of waste products and worn-out machines, with great benefit to the environment. An economic system based on green technology could come much closer to the goal of sustainability, using sunlight instead of fossil fuels as the primary source of energy. New species of termite could be engineered to chew up derelict automobiles instead of houses, and new species of tree could be engineered to convert carbon dioxide and sunlight into liquid fuels instead of cellulose.”
(Dyson, 19 July 2007)
I VerdiRossi sono spesso istericamente contro le biotecnologie. Evidentemente sono bracci politici di gruppi di interessi conservatori anziché di istanze davvero ecologiche. Il loro “ambientalismo” non sembra andare oltre il sogno di pannelli solari ricoprenti pianure e montagne: prospettive non davvero entusiasmanti neppure fossero d’una qualche economicità, cosa che non sono, pur potendo essere utilissimi per qualche casetta isolata. Al contrario, è proprio a livello di ambiente che le biotecnologie sono davvero risolutive un po’ a tutti i livelli:
“Before genetically modified termites and trees can be allowed to help solve our economic and environmental problems, great arguments will rage over the possible damage they may do. Many of the people who call themselves green are passionately opposed to green technology. But in the end, if the technology is developed carefully and deployed with sensitivity to human feelings, it is likely to be accepted by most of the people who will be affected by it, just as the equally unnatural and unfamiliar green technologies of milking cows and plowing soils and fermenting grapes were accepted by our ancestors long ago. I am not saying that the political acceptance of green technology will be quick or easy. I say only that green technology has enormous promise for preserving the balance of nature on this planet as well as for relieving human misery. Future generations of people raised from childhood with biotech toys and games will probably accept it more easily than we do. Nobody can predict how long it may take to try out the new technology in a thousand different ways and measure its costs and benefits.”
(Dyson, 19 July 2007)
(Woese, June 2004) affronta una molteplicità di questioni che vale la pena di vedersi senz’accontentarsi della sola sintesi di (Dyson, 19 July 2007). Vi si troverà, in dettaglio, il salto compiuto dalla biologia:
“A heavy price was paid for molecular biology's obsession with metaphysical reductionism. It stripped the organism from its environment; separated it from its history, from the evolutionary flow; and shredded it into parts to the extent that a sense of the whole—the whole cell, the whole multicellular organism, the biosphere—was effectively gone. Darwin saw biology as a "tangled bank", with all its aspects interconnected. Our task now is to resynthesize biology; put the organism back into its environment; connect it again to its evolutionary past; and let us feel that complex flow that is organism, evolution, and environment united. The time has come for biology to enter the nonlinear world.”
(Woese, June 2004)
Un fattore essenziale, a lungo sottostimato, per comprendere l’evoluzione è il Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT):
“One cellular system in particular is especially informative regarding HGT, and that is the translation apparatus. The translational componentry is a mix of molecules, some of which are highly refractory to horizontal gene displacement and others of which are relatively susceptible.”
(Woese, June 2004)
Non solo la biologia si è combinata e si combina con altri campi della conoscenza scientifica. Bensì si trova di fronte a scelte sia rispetto al suo sviluppo come specifica disciplina che alla società, al mondo, con cui inevitabilmente interagisce:
“Given the temper of the times, the entry of chemistry and physics into biology was inevitable. The technology that these sciences would introduce was not only welcome but very much needed. Also, biology was now well enough scientifically understood that it began to appeal to physicists. But the physics and chemistry that entered biology (especially the former) was a Trojan horse, something that would ultimately conquer biology from within and remake it in its own image. Biology would be totally fissioned, and its holistic side would be quashed. Biology would quickly become a science of lesser importance, for it had nothing fundamental to tell us about the world. Physics provided the ultimate explanations. Biology, as no more than complicated chemistry, was at the end of the line, merely providing baroque ornamentation on the great edifice of understanding that was physics—the hierarchy physics ">chemistry"> biology is burned into the thinking of all scientists, a pecking order that has done much to foster in society the (mistaken) notion that biology is only an applied science.
“In the last several decades we have seen the molecular reductionist reformulation of biology grind to a halt, its vision of the future spent, leaving us with only a gigantic whirring biotechnology machine. Biology today is little more than an engineering discipline. Thus, biology is at the point where it must choose between two paths: either continue on its current track, in which case it will become mired in the present, in application, or break free of reductionist hegemony, reintegrate itself, and press forward once more as a fundamental science. The latter course means an emphasis on holistic, "nonlinear," emergent biology—with understanding evolution and the nature of biological form as the primary, defining goals of a new biology.
“Society cannot tolerate a biology whose metaphysical base is outmoded and misleading: the society desperately needs to live in harmony with the rest of the living world, not with a biology that is a distorted and incomplete reflection of that world. Because it has been taught to accept the above hierarchy of the sciences, society today perceives biology as here to solve its problems, to change the living world. Society needs to appreciate that the real relationship between biology and the physical sciences is not hierarchical, but reciprocal: physics biology. Both physics and biology are primary windows on the world; they see the same gem but different facets thereof (and so inform one another). Knowing this, society will come to see that biology is here to understand the world, not primarily to change it. Biology's primary job is to teach us. In that realization lies our hope of learning to live in harmony with our planet.”
(Woese, June 2004)
(Goldenfeld, 8 February 2007), breve ma denso, ritorna sulla grande portata del HGT, ma anche sull’inevitabilità di altri strumenti di comprensione per organismi con marcate individualità.
Dyson, F., Our Biotech Future, The New York Review of Books, 54 (12), 19 July 2007,
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20370
(Dyson, 19 July 2007).
Freeman Dyson
Woese, C. R., A New Biology for a New Century, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, June 2004, 68 (2), 173-186,
http://mmbr.asm.org/cgi/content/full/68/2/173
(Woese, June 2004).
Carl R. Woese
Goldenfeld, N., Woese, C., Biology's next revolution, 8 February 2007
http://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0702015v1
(Goldenfeld, 8 February 2007).
Nigel Goldenfeld, Carl Woese
