Engineering a solution to genetic uniqueness – Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

By Staff Friday, April 7, 2017

In spite of my hair, no one has ever mistaken me for Einstein. In the gym, after a shower, some people have thought I was Bernie Sanders. But as soon as they started talking to me, they could see that I didnt have his native intelligence.

Science requires no experience, profession, skill or money. Luckily, I was, and am, qualified. If you are a little curious and can think clearly, you can probably do an experiment. I suppose it helps to be a little CDO (which is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder with the letters in the correct sequence). It also helps to be able to focus on a single topic for a long period of time. This requirement has hampered me throughout my career.

Being a scientist probably takes a little money, too, but much less than you might think if you listen to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Scientists seldom complete all the studies that are possible using a single tool. Every time technology comes up with a new piece of equipment scientists need it to see what they can do with it. Everyone wants the new electric microscopes when we really havent exhausted the old steam-powered microscopes yet.

Science rushes recklessly ahead. Now we have a new method of engineering genetics called CRISPR. This is an acronym for CRISPR/cas9 which stands for Clustered Regularly-Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR associated protein 9. Id call it CRISPR for sure if I had to say the full name too many times. One could sprain their frenulum or something trying to say all that.

The deal is that CRISPR has decreased the time and costs of genetic engineering by about 99 percent. Generally, reducing time and costs is a great boon to mankind. As a scientist, I am thrilled! However, it just occurred to me that making it faster and cheaper to destroy ourselves may not be in our best interests.

While Monsanto and the two other food monopolies are excited to make more food, now some medical scientists want to eliminate certain neurological and psychiatric diseases that have been the key to producing the great minds of history. Medical scientists seem to see variations in life as problems to be solved. There should be no deviations or abnormalities outside of a normal curve.

However, humans would be smart to notice that genetic variants contribute to psychiatric conditions that may be beneficial depending on ones environment or genetic background. For example, both Thomas Edison and Einstein were considered addled and were kicked out of school. Tennessee Williams feared the process of thought and nearly went mad. The rate of bipolar disorder is 10 times higher among writers than among the general population, and 40 times higher among poets.

I will insert a shameless self-promotion here concerning my book Between Two Mirrors, available on Amazon.

It is a mixture of science essays by a scientist with a spotty record in public school and poetry by the same person, who some continue to believe may have mental problems.

In short, genetic engineering shows a gross misunderstanding of evolution.

Evolution does not progress toward some ideal species where each individual is identical to the others. Instead, it tinkers around the edges of a species toward adaptation to some local niche that itself changes as the species change. It is impossible to predict the result of evolution because the environment selects the species, and the selected species alters the environment. The best one can say is that evolution produces diversity.

Unruly white hair is a characteristic of old, white males of European descent and, in and of itself, is not a sign of genius. However, mental aberrations are not always something to be eliminated. They may be capable of enriching mankind beyond what one might expect. If CRISPR had been available 72 years ago, you might have been spared this column. However, Id have had a lot less fun.

Gary McCallister, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), is a professor emeritus of biological sciences at Colorado Mesa University.