LIVING WITH THE FLUID GENOME

'Hounded out' of her biology readership at the Open University, UK, Mae-Wan Ho is now director of the Institute of Science in Society and science advisor to the Third World Network. This book, part of her new Inside Science series, is similar in content to her book Genetic Engineering: Dream or Nightmare (1998, 1999) in that it covers the 'brave new world of bad science and big business'. However, the newer book develops several aspects in greater depth, whereas it omits others. It is a catalogue of the potential dangers of genetic engineering (GE) evidenced by original scientific papers. What places the author in opposition to most molecular biologists is her interpretation or risk assessment of the findings. In view of repeated accidental transgene escapes, she may yet prove to be a Cassandra with respect to the dangers she identifies. These can all be traced to the single fact that genomes – the totality of genes in an organism – are fluid. This metaphor put me in mind of an ocean of DNA, a 'DNA-sphere', surrounding the earth, in which the chemical basis of genes could flow almost anywhere. And rogue DNA could conceivably run amok. Biologists who share some of Ho's concerns and have voiced them have been victimised by the establishment, for instance Pusztai and Chapela. Topics covered include the basics of molecular biology; reductionism v. holism; genetic determinism; corporate capitalism; research funding; scientific (un)freedom; neo-Darwinism v. Lamarckism; purposeful (adaptive or directed) mutation of DNA; horizontal gene transfer (i.e., between species rather than down generations); instability of artificially inserted genes; and health genomics. An overarching theme is that genes do not determine characteristics of organisms. There is no one-way flow of command from DNA to protein and beyond, as implied by Francis Crick's central dogma. Instead, form and function information flows in a network which includes a reverse pathway from environment to genes. Ho misses an opportunity to refute another aspect of the dogma, that the high fidelity of DNA replication is not just attributable to base pairing but, more importantly, to the proteins involved. Furthermore, she apparently colludes with orthodoxy in accepting the gene concept itself, which some regard as so fuzzy as to have outworn its usefulness (see, for instance, The Concept of the Gene in Development and Evolution. Historical and Epistemological Perspectives, Buerton, P., et al., Cambridge, 2000). A book claiming on its cover to be 'a death-blow to genetic determinism' would be expected to show that genetic determinism is still present in not only society but also biology. But where the basic assumptions of genetic determinism are listed (p. 15), the chapter's four references are no more recent than 1977. Not until page 40 do quotations evidencing genetic determinism appear, but these are from a popular science book (1987) and two pamphlets for the lay public (mid-1990s). Even if the determinist's assumptions are unspoken (p. i), where is the evidence that biologists think like that today? Or is genetic determinism a straw man? Even the famous quote from James Watson about our fate being in our genes (p. 40) is contradicted by the same author in the prologue of the book Molecular Biology of the Cell (1983) which Watson wrote with others: 'with the dominant role of DNA so clearly established, it was very tempting to say that by understanding the nucleic acids we had understood the essence of the living state…This is a view that we do not share.' Ho does a valuable service in collecting together the evidence for her case, assuming, of course, that it is accurately reported: it provides a campaign tool for those wishing to eliminate the technology from our society. The readership is intended to be 'cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural and global' comprising 'all levels of post-16 education'. As Fluid Genome goes deeper into molecular biology than Dream or Nightmare, many parts will be difficult reading not only for teenage biologists, but also non-biologist adults. This is mitigated somewhat by the good, though not entirely comprehensive, glossary of technical terms (missing, for example, pharm crops, lepidopterans). Another weakness is that although the book is very well referenced with 265 numbered documents, not one of them is linked by their number to the text. Providing a key to the frequent acronyms and abbreviations would also help. Some readers will be uncomfortable with the recurrent tabloid journalistic style of cliché, hyperbole and invective, for example, 'academic institutions have been getting into an orgy of incestuous relationships with industry' (p. 32); plus a measure of oxymoron and tautology, 'natural GE' and 'artificial GE', as well as repetition. Ho asserts early in the book that 'modern western science is distinctly mechanistic' (p. 7). I read on in vain to discover a reason for describing science as 'western' or to find it contrasted with eastern or some other regional science. However, thinking in biology can undoubtedly be mechanistic. The mechanism metaphor is so firmly established that even Ho uses it: 'DNA replication appears to be necessary, but beyond that, a variety of mechanisms may be involved…' (p. 62). And the interesting tautological comment that our culture 'reifies processes to things' (p. 39) deserves developing to show how we could proceed differently. What then is Ho's concept of the organism? Here, she seems slightly uncertain: the fluidic genome responds to the environment 'but even then we may not grasp what makes the organism whole' (p. 151). Organisms, she argues, are controlled from neither inside nor outside (p. 161). Presumably physical control is meant here. But organisms are, by definition, organised and if this is neither from the outside nor the inside, it leaves only the possibility that what is organising is not physical. Nevertheless, to resolve this conundrum, Ho appeals to physics, quantum physics in particular. In her much earlier book The Rainbow and the Worm she posits quantum coherence to describe the organic whole. While our leading biologists continue to picture life in terms of physics, how will a true science of life ever arise?