Being a successful researcher is about finding connections no one else spotted. It's not something you get by following the obvious path. Take the comparison made between the Escherichia coli genome and the Linux kernel, published in PNAS and highlighted in the July issue of Science. Perhaps a rather strange thing to look at, but the value of the work is clear. Evolution has shaped the bacterial genome to be able to withstand certain types of changes, and it is fascinating to see how that differs from the evolution of an open-source operating system. More importantly, mapping a biological system to a well-understood synthetic one means that we are closer to defining the confusing mess of gene interactions in terms we can readily understand.
We already have the first synthetic organism, demonstrating exactly how completely a cell's character is defined by its genome. This is not, of course, entirely new - scientists have been inserting DNA into cells to modify them for years. (I do this on a regular basis.) The difference is that previously, the introduction was partial - the host cell retains some of its original DNA, which helps to stabilise the organism in the face of the introduced genomic materia and the changes that it brings. This is the first time DNA has been introduced into an empty shell, restoring its function to be near-identical to the original.
Perhaps also, this is one of the rare times when such things come to the attention of the public. Scientists working in these fields know that such things are possible - it's simply a matter of expertise, of sitting down and working out the details. But we in science are well-insulated from the real world. There are a shocking number of people out there who do not understand things believed to be self-evident by the scientific community. For example, a lot of people don't realise that while the means by which life was first created, is perhaps debatable (although such a debate requires a healthy disregard for the fossil record), natural selection itself is not. It happens constantly. Right now. Everywhere around the world. In the soil, on the ceiling, on your face, in your gut, anywhere and everywhere a bacterium or virus might be. You grow up bacteria on a plate or in a host, slowly add increasing levels of antibiotics, and pick out the resistant survivors. That's natural selection, right there. It's a process which so undeniably exists, there is absolutely no point in debating its existence. And yet some people do.
I also think that a lot of people don't understand what science is. If you can point a stick at someone, yell "Avada Kedavra!" and reliably kill them in a flash of green light most of the time, it's not magic, it's science. If something is observable and can be tested, then it comes under the banner of science. Science is not a fixed set of facts. It is a way of thinking about the information which you have, and thinking about how you will acquire more or different information. The current set of facts is meant to change with each new acquired observation. Unfortunately, what many have to go on are the popular depictions of science, which are often not of science at all, but some kind of technological magic.
(As an aside, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius was a horrible, horrible movie for any student of science. Science is not about building crazy gadgets or doing utterly impossible and senseless things. And no, movies meant for children do not get a one free ticket out of being sensible. Monsters Inc. had good imaginary science, why should the rest of you do less?)
In spite of the advantages of thinking scientifically, I don't see it becoming much more widespread than it is now. Thinking scientifically is hard. It requires absolute trust in one's observations, in one's calculations, and in the ideal that there is a truth, even if you can never find it. If there is something which you desperately want to be true, but there is no evidence to support it in spite of repeated testing, then you have to have the strength to let go. You need to always check your sources and be sure of the information you pass on. You need the courage to admit that your initial hypothesis was wrong. It's far easier to simply accept beliefs without questioning them.
I think it's sad, though, to be blind to the excitement as we understand more and more about the way things work, as we find how closely life walks the line between chaos and order, as we come closer to realising how incredibly complex and yet simple biological systems can be, simply for the sake of trotting out the old, ignorant argument of how terrible it would be if someone cloned Hitler.
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