Geneticists

"Isn’t science, as some maintain, based on a “faith” that it’s good to pursue the truth? Hardly. The notion that knowledge is better than ignorance is not a quasi-religious faith, but a preference: we prefer to know the truth because accepting what’s false doesn’t give us useful answers about the universe."

"Every bit of truth clawed from nature over the last four centuries has involved completely ignoring God, for even religious scientists park their faith at the laboratory door."

"As the journalist Nick Cohen noted about accusations that atheism is like religion, “It’s not a charge I’d throw around if I were seeking to defend faith. When people say of dozens of political and cultural movements from monetarism to Marxism that their followers treat their cause ‘like a religion,’ they never mean it as a compliment. They mean that dumb obedience to higher authority and an obstinate attachment to dogma mark its adherents.”"

"Most religions, and certainly the Abrahamic ones, have three features that are foreign to science. The most important is religion’s linkage to moral codes that define and enforce proper behavior, behavior supposedly reflecting God’s will. The second is the widespread belief in eternal reward and punishment: the notion that after death not just your fate but everyone else’s depends on adherence to conduct mandated by your religion. And the third is the notion of absolute truth: that the nature of your god, and what it wants, is unchanging. While some believers see their ability to fathom God’s nature as limited, and don’t accept the notion of a heaven or hell, the certainty of religious dogma is ar more absolute and far less provisional than the pronouncements of science. This combination of certainty, morality, and universal punishment is toxic. It is what leads many believers not only to accept unenlightened views, like the disenfranchisement of women and gays, opposition to birth control, and intrusions into people’s private sex lives, but also to force those views on others, including their own children and society at large, and sometimes even to kill those who disagree."

"For good people to do evil doesn’t require only religion, or even any religion, but simply one of its key elements: belief without evidence—in other words, faith. And that kind of faith is seen not just in religion, but in any authoritarian ideology that puts dogma above truth and frowns on dissent."

"Science has a huge advantage over “other ways of knowing”: built-in methods of self-correction."

"But none of this criticism of science makes religion even a tiny bit more credible... In contrast, religion has never been right in its claims about the universe—at least not in a way that all rational people can accept. There is no reliable method to show that the Trinity exists, that God is loving and all-powerful, that we’ll meet our dead relatives in the afterlife, or that Brahma created the universe from a golden egg. Lacking a way to show its tenets are wrong, religion cannot show them to be right, even provisionally."

"The harm, as I’ve said repeatedly, comes not from the existence of religion itself, but from its reliance on and glorification of faith—belief, or, if you will, “trust” or “confidence”—without supporting evidence. And faith, as employed in religion (and in most other areas), is a danger to both science and society. The danger to science is in how faith warps the public understanding of science: by arguing, for instance, that science is based just as strongly on faith as is religion; by claiming that revelation or the guidance of ancient books is just as reliable a guide to truth about our universe as are the tools of science; by thinking that an adequate explanation can be based on what is personally appealing rather than on what stands the test of empirical study."

"La vérité ne se possède pas, elle se cherche."

"Ionizing radiation has always been with us and will be for all foreseeable time. Our genetic system is probably well adjusted by natural selection to normal background radiation. Added radiation will increase the frequency of mutations; most of these will be harmful. Exposure to radiation in large amounts will increase malignant disease; small amounts may possibly do the same. In view of these potentially harmful effects every reasonable effort should be made to reduce the levels of ionizing radiation to which man is exposed to to the lowest levels that can reasonably be attained."

"Game theory concepts were first explicitly applied in evolutionary biology by Lewontin (1961). His approach, however, was to picture a species as playing a game against nature, and to seek strategies which minimised the probability of extinction. A similar line has been taken by Slobodkin & Rapoport (1974). In contrast, here we picture members of a population as playing games against each other, and consider the population dynamics and equilibria which can arise."

"The theory of games was first formalised by Von Neumann & Morgenstern (1953) in reference to human economic behaviour. Since that time, the theory has undergone extensive development... Sensibly enough, a central assumption of classical game theory is that the players will behave rationally, and according to some criterion of self-interest. Such an assumption would clearly be out of place in an evolutionary context. Instead, the criterion of rationality is replaced by that of population dynamics and stability, and the criterion of self-interest by Darwinian fitness."

"Evolutionary game theory is a way of thinking about evolution at the phenotypic level when the fitnesses of particular phenotypes depend on their frequencies in the population."

"Paradoxically, it has turned out that game theory is more readily applied to biology than to the field of economic behavior for which it was originally designed"

"The last decade has seen a steady increase in the application of concepts from the theory of games to the study of evolution. Fields as diverse as sex ratio theory, animal distribution, contest behaviour and reciprocal altruism have contributed to what is now emerging as a universal way of thinking about phenotypic evolution."

"Natural selection is the only workable explanation for the beautiful and compelling illusion of 'design' that pervades every living body and every organ. Knowledge of evolution may not be strictly useful in everyday commerce. You can live some sort of life and die without ever hearing the name of Darwin. But if, before you die, you want to understand why you lived in the first place, Darwinism is the one subject that you must study."

"Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed for the remarkable fact of our own existence, indeed the existence of all life wherever it may turn up in the universe."

"It is an occupational risk of biologists to claim, towards the end of their careers, that the problems which they have not solved are insoluble."

"It is in the nature of science that once a position becomes orthodox it should be subjected to criticism.... It does not follow that, because a position is orthodox, it is wrong."

"Тhе сепtгаl роіпt геmаіпs that Darwin provided a theory which predicts that organisms should have parts adapted to ensure their survival and . This has led to the suggestion that life should be defined by the possession of those properties which are needed to ensure evolution by natural selection. That is, entities with the properties of multiplication, variation, and are alive, and entities lacking one or more of those properties are not."

"John Maynard Smith, an engineer by training, knows much about his biology secondhand. He seldom deals with live organisms. He computes and he reads. I suspect that it's very hard for him to have insight into any group of organisms when he does not deal with them directly. Biologists, especially, need direct sensory communication with the live beings they study and about which they write."

"According to Goldschmidt, all that evolution by the usual mutations—dubbed "micromutations"—can accomplish is to bring about "diversification strictly within species, usually, if not exclusively, for the sake of adaptation of the species to specific conditions within the area which it is able to occupy." New species, genera, and higher groups arise at once, by cataclysmic saltations—termed macromutations or systematic mutations—which bring about in one step a basic reconstruction of the whole organism. The role of natural selection in this process becomes "reduced to the simple alternative: immediate acceptance or rejection." A new form of life having been thus catapulted into being, the details of its structures and functions are subsequently adjusted by micromutation and selection. It is unnecessary to stress here that this theory virtually rejects evolution as this term is usually understood (to evolve means to unfold or to develop gradually), and that the systematic mutations it postulates have never been observed. It is possible to imagine a mutation so drastic that its product becomes a monster hurling itself beyond the confines of species, genus, family, or class. But in what Goldschmidt has called the "hopeful monster" the harmonious system, which any organism must necessarily possess, must be transformed at once into a radically different, but still sufficiently coherent, system to enable the monster to survive. The assumption that such a prodigy may, however rarely, walk the earth overtaxes one's credulity, even though it may be right that the existence of life in the cosmos is in itself an extremely improbable event."

"Between 1937 and 1941, Dobzhansky went from being able to allow for the possibility of evolutionary mechanisms other than those he favored to a position in which everything that did not fit his definition of evolution was rejected. In the midst of his outpouring of anger at and dismissal of Goldschmidt, Dobzhansky neglected to consider the fact that while Goldschmidt's systemic mutations may not have been observed, neither had the mechanisms of speculation that he, or anyone else, for that matter, had proposed. ...it was and still is the case that, with the exception of Dobzhansky's claim about a new species of fruit fly, the formation of a new species, by any mechanism, has never been observed."

"The greatest evolutionist of our century."

"Man is the only living being who has a developed self-awareness and death-awareness."

"No known human group . . . simply throw[s] out its dead without any ritual or ceremony. In stark contrast, no animal practices burial of dead individuals of its own species."

"Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts. As pointed out above, the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness."

"Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light it becomes a pile of sundry facts -- some of them interesting or curious but making no meaningful picture as a whole."

"My genes have indeed determined what I am, but only in the sense that, given the succession of environments and experiences that were mine, a carrier of a different set of genes might have become unlike myself."

"The living world is not a single array . . . connected by unbroken series of intergrades."

"The evolution of life, and the evolutionary origin of mankind, are scientifically established as firmly and completely as any historical event not witnessed by human observers. Any concession to anti-evolutionists, suggesting that there are scientific reasons to doubt the facticity of evolution, would be propagating a plain untruth."

"The issue, rather, is this: Are we prepared to embrace the undeniably vast potential of genetics to improve the human condition, individually and collectively? Most immediate, would we want the guidance of genetic information to design learning best suited to our children’s individual needs?"

"The Double Helix opens with the words: "I have never seen Francis Crick in a modest mood." I have never seen James D Watson in a modest mood, either. He is not an innately modest person. In his later years he would consent to press briefings – usually on important anniversaries – and then, with long pauses and enigmatic mumbles, say almost nothing. This was not because he was self-effacing or disliked controversy. He would say almost nothing, one sensed, because he couldn't be bothered with stupid questions from stupid people. He has made it clear more than once that this is his default attitude."

"Consistently rated as one of the greatest books written about science in the past century, it has been hailed as a work that combines the plot line of a racy novel with deep insights about the nature of modern research. But James Watson, author of The Double Helix, has revealed that his masterpiece came close to being suppressed. In an exclusive interview with the Observer, he admitted last week that his account of the discovery of the structure of DNA, when shown to friends and colleagues in the late 60s, triggered such hostility and outrage it seemed fated never to appear in print. … Many publishers were frightened off by threats of legal action from the manuscript's critics. Watson's depictions of several scientists were deeply unflattering and the book's secondary plot, which focuses on Watson's pursuit of young women – or "popsies" as he called them – around Cambridge, was considered irrelevant and patronising. Harvard University Press, having accepted Watson's manuscript for publication, came under pressure from the university's senior administrators and dropped the book. It took the intervention of Lady Alice Bragg, the wife of Watson's former boss, Sir [William] Lawrence Bragg, to save The Double Helix, Watson has revealed."

"He says that he is “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”, and I know that this “hot potato” is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”. He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because “there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level”. He writes that “there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so”."

"There is in the first place its scientific interest. The discovery of the structure by Crick and Watson, with all its biological implications, has been one of the major scientific events of this century. The number of researches which it has inspired is amazing; it has caused an explosion in biochemistry which has transformed the science. I have been amongst those who have pressed the author to write his recollections while they are still fresh in his mind, knowing how important they would be as a contribution to the history of science. The result has exceeded expectation. The latter chapters, in which the birth of the new idea is described so vividly, are drama of the highest order; the tension mounts and mounts towards the final climax. I do not know of any other instance where one is able to share so intimately in the researcher's struggles and doubts and final triumph. Then again, the story is a poignant example of a dilemma which may confront an investigator. He knows that a colleague has been working for years on a problem and has accumulated a mass of hard-won evidence, which has not yet been published because it is anticipated that success is just around the comer. He has seen this evidence and has good reason to believe that a method of attack which he can envisage, perhaps merely a new point of view, will lead straight to the solution. An offer of collaboration at such a stage might well be regarded as a trespass. Should he go ahead on his own It is not easy to be sure whether the crucial new idea is really one's own or has been unconsciously assimilated in talks with others. The realization of this difficulty has led to the establishment of a some what vague code amongst scientists which recognizes a claim in a line of research staked out by a colleague up to a certain point. When competition comes from more than one quarter, there is no need to hold back. This dilemma comes out clearly in the DNA story. It is a source of deep satisfaction to all intimately concerned that, in the award of the Nobel Prize in 1962, due recognition was given to the long, patient investigation by Wilkins at King's College (London) as well as to the brilliant and rapid final solution by Crick and Watson at Cambridge. Finally, there is the human interest of the story the impression made by Europe and by England in particular upon a young man from the States. He writes with a Pepys like frankness. Those who figure in the book must read it in a very forgiving spirit. One must remember that his book is not a history, but an autobiographical contribution to the history which will some day be written. As the author himself says, the book is a record of impressions rather than historical facts. The issues were often more complex, and the motives of those who had to deal with them were less tortuous, than he realized at the time. On the other hand, one must admit that his intuitive understanding of human frailty often strikes home."

"With its direct contradiction of religious accounts of creation, evolution represents science’s most direct incursion into the religious domain and accordingly provokes the acute defensiveness that characterizes creationism."

"I do not dispute the right of individuals to look to religion for a private moral compass, but I do object to the assumption of too many religious people that atheists live in a moral vacuum. Those of us who feel no need for a moral code written down in an ancient tome have, in my opinion, recourse to an innate moral intuition long ago shaped by natural selection promoting social cohesion in groups of our ancestors."

"And so if there is a paramount ethical issue attending the vast new genetic knowledge created by the Human Genome Project, in my view it is the slow pace at which what we now know is being deployed to diminish human suffering. Leaving aside the uncertainties of gene therapy, I find the lag in embracing even the most unambiguous benefits to be utterly unconscionable. That in our medically advanced society almost no women are screened for the fragile X mutation two decades after its discovery can attest only to ignorance or intransigence."

"But even if we allow hypothetically that gene enhancement could—like any powerful technology—be applied to nefarious social ends, that only strengthens the case for our developing it. Considering the near impossibility of repressing technological progress, and the fact that much of what is now prohibited is well on its way to becoming practicable, do we dare restrain our own research community and risk allowing some culture that does not share our values to gain the upper hand? From the time the first of our ancestors fashioned a stick into a spear, the outcomes of conflicts throughout history have been dictated by technology."

"I find such a moralistic response to be profoundly immoral."

"The reality is that the idea of improving on the genes that nature has given us alarms people. When discussing our genes, we seem ready to commit what philosophers call the naturalistic fallacy, assuming that the way nature intended it is best. By centrally heating our homes and taking antibiotics when we have an infection, we carefully steer clear of the fallacy in our daily lives, but mentions of genetic improvement have us rushing to run the “nature knows best” flag up the mast. For this reason, I think that the acceptance of genetic enhancement will most likely come about through efforts to prevent disease."

"Given what a powerful determinant, mostly for ill, skin color has been in human history and individual experience, it is surprising how little we know about its underlying genetics. This deficit, however, may have had less to do with the limitations of our science and more with the intrusion of politics into science; in an academic world terrorized by political correctness, even to study the molecular basis of such a characteristic has been something of a taboo."

"The conclusion that we nearly all carry components of Neanderthal DNA in our genomes, although perhaps a blow to our collective ego, does not appear quite so surprising upon reflection. Indeed, the overall lesson of molecular studies of human evolution is just how astonishingly close we are genetically to the rest of the natural world. In fact, molecular data have often challenged (and overthrown) long-held assumptions about human origins."

"This remarkable feat merely reaffirms what most of us in molecular biology have long known to be the truth: the essence of life is complicated chemistry and nothing more."

"Our low gene count by no means invalidates a reductionist approach to biological systems, nor does it justify any logical inference that we are not determined by our genes. A fertilized egg containing a chimp genome still inevitably produces a chimp, while a fertilized egg containing a human genome produces a human. No amount of exposure to classical music or violence on TV could make it otherwise. Yes, we have a long way to go in developing our understanding of just how the information in those two remarkably similar genomes is applied to the task of producing two apparently very different organisms, but the fact remains that the greatest part of what each individual organism will be is programmed ineluctably into its every cell, in the genome."

"Khan analyzed the data and was relieved to find that his son’s DNA was “pretty boring.” In the brave new world of personal genomics, “boring” is the new “great.”"

"Sure enough, the notion of decoding their personal DNA appealed to more than a few well-off individuals, even if it amounted to the scientific equivalent of purchasing a vanity license plate."

"The opposition to GM foods is largely a sociopolitical movement whose arguments, though couched in the language of science, are typically unscientific. Indeed, some of the anti-GM pseudoscience propagated by the media—whether in the interests of sensationalism or out of misguided but well-intentioned concern—would be actually amusing were it not evident that such gibberish is in fact an effective weapon in the propaganda war."

"The problem was insoluble: you cannot, we thought, have DNA without proteins, and you cannot have proteins without DNA. RNA, however, being a DNA equivalent (it can store and replicate genetic information) as well as a protein equivalent (it can catalyze critical chemical reactions) offers an answer. In fact, in the “RNA world” the chicken-and-egg problem simply disappears. RNA is both the chicken and the egg. RNA is an evolutionary heirloom. Once natural selection has solved a problem, it tends to stick with that solution, in effect following the maxim “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” In other words, in the absence of selective pressure to change, cellular systems do not innovate and so bear many imprints of the evolutionary past. A process may be carried out in a certain way simply because it first evolved that way, not because that is absolutely the best and most efficient way."