<HTML>Hi Duncan,
>You've decided to deride an entire area of science merely because you
>appear to have misunderstood the claims that were made about it.
I think you should read posts before replying on impulsively.
"but what I can't believe is how a <b>few scientists</b> (or rather a <b>few companies</b>) feed the media with announces telling the public that we are almost done decoding the human genome"
>This was a mammoth task to complete and if you were at all aware of
>what it involved you would not be ranting about it in this manner
You see, I think I do know a little bit (tho less than I would like) about pcr, shotgun sequencing, filling gaps, large scale assembly of smaller fragments, linkage maps, polymorphic markers, etc, and that's why I did not attack the research itself, far from it. I have a lot of respect for genetic research, for the painstaking process it involves (even if some of it has been automatized) .
And since you seem to think I do not even think before posting, here is
some material.
"Eric Lander, professor of biology and director of the Whitehead Genome Center, and Lauren Linton, co-director of its sequencing center, as well as sequencing center team leaders were in the White House East Room as President Clinton and Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair made the historic announcement -- that the "book of life" had been decoded. The room was electric with anticipation as the band played "Hail to the Chief" and announced the President's entrance."
"Having churned out a map of the human genome, Celera Genomics is now stepping into a new race, one already cluttered with competitors. Joined by two other divisions of its parent company, Applera Corporation, Celera plans to sort through the genome it decoded and pinpoint bits of genes crucial in designing new diagnostic tests and drugs"
There is a good one too in the introduction on Carl Sagan's Cosmos (which I love btw).
Now before you reply again on impulse (assuming you are still reading), let me say that I do understand a tiny little bit about genetics, and I do know the difference between sequencing a genome and what understanding it implies, after all that was the point of my post.
I do not worry about people like you, or most of the people here, but there are a lot of others whose only source of information on this is the newspaper. I do not like grand announces in the kind of what Clinton, Blair, Celera Genomics & al do, that lead my grandparents to think we are almost done understanding life.
Yes, 'Naive' is probably a word that would apply to them in the field of genetics, and honnestly I do not think they care, what they care about is that they really felt misled once they got it explained.
_I guess_ you _could_ argue that it's the media's fault, but that's just not my opinion.
You can still call me misleading and dishonnest if you will, it is only my opinion and I sometimes like to give it. Sorry.
Francis.</HTML>