On Sat, 27 Dec 2003 01:40:05 +0000 (UTC), d_clarke{at}inicia.es (M Arino)
wrote:

>Hi there,
>
>I read the first two chapters of Peter Atkins's "Galileo's finger".  I
>have first two points to ask to you guys about, then follows a rant
>:-)
>
>First:  Atkins claims that the Cro-Magnon are no modern humans, but
>some "homo species" slightly different to modern humans.  Is this the
>case? If my memory doesn't fail me, Cro.Magnons are Homo Sapiens
>Sapiens, and therefore already modern humans as far as species is
>concerned.
>
>Second, He argues that the argument between Celera genomics and the
>Human Genome project was sort of "silly and childish".  I think that
>Celera anounced that they had made the mapping of the human genome,
>when in fact they had only sequenced the DNA of a single individual. 
>To have a complete map, one should have all the variations of single
>genes, and their function, in the picture.  In short, Atkins doesn't
>seem to difference the two procedures. Is this I said right or do I
>have something very wrong in here?
>
>OK, now the rant: I find that the style of the book annoys me deeply,
>as for being imprecise, pontificating, pedantic and , what I find
>worse, he says that science gets one in the "summit of
>comprehension"... and then he gets (I think) some facts wrong.
>
>OK, thanks for your patience with the rant and for any possible help
>with the questions...
>
First:  I am not an antrhopologist, but most sources I consulted call
Cro Magnon an "early modern" human, Homo sapiens sapiens.  That is, a
member of our species and subspecies. You say "not modern" and
"slightly different".  That could well be true even.  There could also
be differences of opinion.  For example, are the Neandertals Homo
neandertalis or Homo sapiens neandertalis?  Ideas change and someone
writing science for the general public in areas outside his own
specialty (I believe Atkins is a chemist) might get some details or
interpretations incorrect.  That shouldn't detract from the overall
value of the work if the errors are few and scattered.  All science
writing will have some such errors.

Second:  A lot of people have different opinions about the way that
Celera and the Human Genome project interacted (or failed to interact)
in the process of decoding the human genome.  The problem is political
and social and economic, not on how many humans contributed DNA to the
project.  It is not possible to create a "complete" map of
"all" the
variations in the human population.  Having the genome of even a
single individual is an enormous first step.  Everyone knew that it
would be necessary to start collecting libraries of variations.  But
that is not the reason for the behavior that could well be called
"silly and childish".  There were (and still are) some enormous egos
involved and there was a power play for who would gain prestige and
leadership in an important area of science.  And most of all, there
was an enormous fight over who should retain "ownership" of the genome
-- whether the genome could be made private property with licensing
and royalties fees associated with the use of the information or
whether it should be public domain.  There were also disagreements on
how complete and accurate the genome need be before declaring
"success."  The fact is that the two major groups really did not play
well together.  What could have been a cooperative venture was really
a race to determine who "won".

The book seems to have made a strong impression on you.  That means it
worked effectively in forcing you to think about issues, formulate
questions, and seek answers.  That is, it was a good book!  When you
first start learning science, you tend to believe everything you read
-- after all, the authors are supposed to be "experts" or
"authorities".  Then you realize that authors are just people, with
their own axes to grind, their own opinions and conceptions and
mistakes.  The fact that you can start criticizing an author for
errors or misinterpretations of fact indicates that you have reached a
certain level of sophistication in science.  That fact that you can
criticize the style and tone of an author ("pontificating and
pedantic") indicates that you are a serious reader.  There is an awful
lot of science writing that disturbs me in the same way -- Carl Sagan
and Steven Jay Gould are two authors that come to mind.  Still I read
and think and fume about technical errors and interpretations and
misreadings and pomposity.  And in the end, I still learn a few
things.
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