Re: Your Genes Health and Future

Posted by Dale on Jan 26, 2002 at 10:36
(204.212.212.40)

Re: Your Genes Health and Future (mara)

the lack of complete information about dna will prevent effective genetic manipulation

Doesn't that depend on your definition of "effective"? Our history is full of instances where a new technology is used and useful without complete knowledge. I am reminded of the first controlled nuclear fission reaction under the stands in the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field. When that experiment was performed the knowledge of delayed neutrons was unknown. They thought that there was a short time delay between the fissioning of an atom, the neutrons traveling to the next atom, and the fissioning of that atom but they didn’t know what that time was. Turns out it is VERY short. Measured in picoseconds. Given this information is should be obvious that the experiment they were conducting would have resulted in an explosion. The volume of fuel they supplied should have leveled Chicago and a good part of the Midwest as well. But it didn’t. What they didn’t know and what allowed me to be born was that in a small percentage of the fissions one neutron is delayed in coming out by a few milliseconds. This delay is enough to prevent the reaction from running away. It gives us poor slow humans time enough to apply a mechanical control mechanism to slow down the reaction rate and keep it under control.

So, without complete information we built an atomic bomb and ended the war. But what if the delay didn’t exist? What if we had leveled a good part of the central US in 1942? I believe we would have just changed our plan and ended the war even sooner. Just bring in the German, Italian, and Japanese representatives and show them what is left and indicate that if the war doesn’t end this afternoon, the same will happen to their countries now that we know how to do it. Although I probably wouldn’t have been born, the total loss of life (considering the Russian losses) would have been less. Lots of things would be different (we wouldn’t have nuclear power to fall back on when the idiots outlaw oil) and it might be someone different here talking about what if there were a delay in neutron emissions… But effective actions would have been taken even with incomplete knowledge.

Incomplete knowledge didn’t stop us from landing on the moon (we didn’t know how lumpy the mass of the moon is and could have crashed on the first orbit if we were tried just a little lower) and incomplete knowledge will not stop us from genetic manipulation. Some people will die and others will live. That’s how we do it.


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