Craig J Venter, Richard Dawkins on dld08 stage
Posted by Oliver Gassner • Monday, January 21. 2008
Moderated byJohn Brockman
Dawkins wrote 'The Selfless Gene', a milestone of modern biology.
Venter helped decoding the human Genome.
Dawkins: Things have changed much. Singer in 1930ies. A Gene was a riddle back then. There were no 'living seperate genes' back then. Only in context in living creatures. (This view was wrong.)
Venter: First I did not like Dawkins book, but I changed my mind.
Now I see the world not in a genome pointof veiw but in a gene pont of view. They are the buling stones of the future.
Last year we trabsfered one gene from one bacterium into the other.
Now we can design life by looking at seperate genes.
We can now think of alternate ways of making fuel: Organisms can use light to make fuel or methane.
Dawkins: Genes arepure information. YOU CAN STORETHEM ON A DISK AND RECREATE THEM IN A 1000 YEARS.
This is THE major revolution in our understandiing of ourselves.Darwin would have loved it.
Venter: We have first digitalized biology.Now we can reconstruct a chromosomeina lab fromdigital info. This is the only nanochtech that currentnly works.
Dawkins: The phrase 'play god' has been brought up with this 'scientism'. Scientinsts might well endanger the future of the planet. There are lots of silly accusiations, but we might overlook legit criticism.
Venter: science might save humankind. But the catarophy might also be here because of the climate.
We might be able to save ourselves by biotech solar energy. We can make octane this way.
Oil was cheap. But now alternatives are there. But the pricemicht be artificalky droppped. There needs to be a tax on non renewable carbon. The US need to take the lead here.
Brockman: what is the role of intellectuualyproperty and opensource here?
Venter: (don' understand how this relates to the question) We have real time evolution of bacterianinour lings. We cannow have this also inthe lab.Mutation and selectiontake place there.
We are already influencing evolution e.g. By trash in the ocean. We need todo it in adeliberatevway.
Dawkins: Bacteria and scientis use am "open source" way to createrevolution. Sexual genetics are the opposite: they are ritualized.
Dyson "the darwinian phase". Darwinian selection is not replacing one species by another.
(I'll leave it at that...)
Dawkins wrote 'The Selfless Gene', a milestone of modern biology.
Venter helped decoding the human Genome.
Dawkins: Things have changed much. Singer in 1930ies. A Gene was a riddle back then. There were no 'living seperate genes' back then. Only in context in living creatures. (This view was wrong.)
Venter: First I did not like Dawkins book, but I changed my mind.
Now I see the world not in a genome pointof veiw but in a gene pont of view. They are the buling stones of the future.
Last year we trabsfered one gene from one bacterium into the other.
Now we can design life by looking at seperate genes.
We can now think of alternate ways of making fuel: Organisms can use light to make fuel or methane.
Dawkins: Genes arepure information. YOU CAN STORETHEM ON A DISK AND RECREATE THEM IN A 1000 YEARS.
This is THE major revolution in our understandiing of ourselves.Darwin would have loved it.
Venter: We have first digitalized biology.Now we can reconstruct a chromosomeina lab fromdigital info. This is the only nanochtech that currentnly works.
Dawkins: The phrase 'play god' has been brought up with this 'scientism'. Scientinsts might well endanger the future of the planet. There are lots of silly accusiations, but we might overlook legit criticism.
Venter: science might save humankind. But the catarophy might also be here because of the climate.
We might be able to save ourselves by biotech solar energy. We can make octane this way.
Oil was cheap. But now alternatives are there. But the pricemicht be artificalky droppped. There needs to be a tax on non renewable carbon. The US need to take the lead here.
Brockman: what is the role of intellectuualyproperty and opensource here?
Venter: (don' understand how this relates to the question) We have real time evolution of bacterianinour lings. We cannow have this also inthe lab.Mutation and selectiontake place there.
We are already influencing evolution e.g. By trash in the ocean. We need todo it in adeliberatevway.
Dawkins: Bacteria and scientis use am "open source" way to createrevolution. Sexual genetics are the opposite: they are ritualized.
Dyson "the darwinian phase". Darwinian selection is not replacing one species by another.
(I'll leave it at that...)
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