Chapter: Genetic Information: Epistemological and Ethical Issues

Quote:

This ethical problem is not directly related to the way biologists use the notion of information, nonetheless this problem is related to data banks in which genetic results are stored.17 The controversy between Celera and the public HGP consortium would provide an example. Indeed, according to HGP researcher John Sulston: “The Human Genome Project and Celera were not working toward a common goal, since only the former generated a public sequence. Like everyone else, Celera had free access to all our assembled sequence. But Celera also asked us for a personal transfer of individual nematode sequence reads. To comply would have been a major distraction from our [HGP] work” (Sulston quoted in Koerner, 2003).

What I expect to learn:

To be aware of the genetic information

Review:                    

Big term huh but in this chapter, it was explained “that genetic information is the genes containing an amount of information (the so-called TACG amino acids sequence) and able to build a human being up is today a seldom challenged triviality. This idea is fundamental to the so-called “Central Dogma” of genetics. The “Central Dogma”, as originally formulated by Crick, is a negative hypothesis, which states that information cannot flow downward from protein to DNA.” No, DNAs are not really my professional concern but I am aware that like DNAs, computers withhold an amazing degree of information no man can memorize but can definitely determine.

Trying to collaborate the human DNA and ethical issues with information technology will lead to something I am not really sure of so let me just clarify that this chapter covered the explanation of how information, like DNAs, are being processed and how it did came about – or so I thought. I am not pushing the idea that I am correct or my understanding of it is a bit flushed compared to the technical terms placed within the part of the book but I am determined to believe that DNAs hold great levels of information about a person just by looking at it, its characteristic of being unique is taking all my curiosity to the next level.

What I learned:

·         The Concept of Information

·         The Notion of Genetic Information

·         A SEMANTIC OR A SYNTACTIC THEORY OF GENETIC INFORMATION

·         Berlinski: Bacterial Cell as Automata

·         Maynard Smith: Eggs as Computer Machineries

·         USE AND MISUSE OF MODELS

·         ETHICAL PROBLEMS OF GENETIC INFORMATION

·         Ideological Use of a Model and Ethical Issues in Fund-raising

·         Cooperation and Public Access of Data

Integrative Questions:            

1.    What is the concept of genetic information?

2.    What is the typical notion of genetic information?

3.    What did Berlinski contribute? Elaborate.

4.    What did Maynard mention? Explain.

5.    Is public access of data legal? If not, should it be?