She told me her name was Billy Gene, as she caused a scene
Then every head turned with eyes that dreamed of being the one
Who will dance on the floor in the round
People always told me be careful of what you do
And don't go around breaking peoples' hearts
And mother always told me be careful of who you love
And be careful of what you do 'cause the lie becomes the truth
Billy Gene is not my lover
She's just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son
For forty days and forty nights
The law was on her side
But who can stand when she's in demand
Her schemes and plans
'Cause we danced on the floor in the round
So take my strong advice, just remember to always think twice
A weak way to begin a post but how many chances will I ever get to write about genes, to be honest quite a lot.
There can be no doubting that the Human Genome Project has caused quite a scene.
Every head turned as they dreamed of this sequence being the one.
Despite huge amounts of criticism and many many years since the human genome was sequenced. Hardly a day goes by without some Daily Mail headline heralding the latest genetic breakthrough in the fight against Alzheimer's, Cancer, and Diabetes, in fact pretty much anything. Despite billions of dollars the genetic research on Heart Disease, Cancer, Alzheimer's etc is so insignificant that it is laughable. Well it would be if it weren't for the deep crisis which looms over science as it meanders out of control down the genetics pathway, desperately searching a reason to say I told you so. Yet more often than not falling dangerously close to being filled away in the Science Fiction section of every town library.
Have a little click on this link, unsurprisingly, everything other than the title is hidden away from view of the public.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21142536
If you were able to access it fully you'd find that it reported that little correlation exists between obesity, diabetes, and your genes.That it is basically a huge steaming pile of *%@^ that does not warrant neither anymore time nor investment.
I had intended to comment originally on the attempts to harvest human organs in pigs labeled gene editing. However, I thought I'd let the remarkable and much missed Ma-Wan Ho explain why the Human Genome is a total washout in this rather brilliant article she wrote.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/humangenome.php
"The fallacy of genetic determinism is widely recognized (18). Genuine genetic diseases that can be attributed to single genes constitute less than 2% of all diseases. And more and more geneticists are coming around to the view that even those are subject to so many other genetic and environmental influences that there is simply no such thing as a single-gene condition. For the rest, the association between the condition and the specific genes or genetic markers reduces to tenuous ‘predispositions’ or ‘susceptibility’.
‘Predipositions’ to cancer for example, conceals the fact that important environmental factors are left out of consideration. These include the hundreds of acknowledged industrial carcinogens polluting our environment. It is well-known that the incidence of cancer increases with industrialization and with the use of pesticides. Women in non-industrialized Asian countries have a much lower incidence of breast cancer than the women living in the industrialized west. However, when Asian women emigrate to Europe and the United States, their incidence of cancer jumps to that of the white European women within a single generation. Similarly, when DDT and other pesticides were phased out in Israel, breast cancer mortality in pre-menopausal women dropped by 30%. The overwhelming causes of ill-health are environmental and social. That is the conclusion of a growing body of research findings. Environmental influences swamp even large genetic differences.
The genetic determinist approach of the human genome programme is pernicious because it diverts attention and resources away from addressing the real causes of ill-health, while at the same time stigmatizing the victims and fueling eugenic tendencies in society. The health of nations will be infinitely better served by devoting resources to preventing environmental pollution and to phasing out agrochemicals, rather than by identifying all the genes that ‘predispose’ people to ill-health. The UK Royal Society produced a report in July, calling for national and international coordination to deal with the dangers posed to humans and wildlife by endocrine-disrupting chemicals, substances thought to mimic or block natural hormones in amounts too minute to trigger a conventional toxic response (19).
But it is the inherent complexity of the human organism and the lack of a concept of the organism as a coherent whole that will continue to frustrate all attempts at understanding health and disease within the dominant, reductionist framework."
Then every head turned with eyes that dreamed of being the one
Who will dance on the floor in the round
People always told me be careful of what you do
And don't go around breaking peoples' hearts
And mother always told me be careful of who you love
And be careful of what you do 'cause the lie becomes the truth
Billy Gene is not my lover
She's just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son
For forty days and forty nights
The law was on her side
But who can stand when she's in demand
Her schemes and plans
'Cause we danced on the floor in the round
So take my strong advice, just remember to always think twice
A weak way to begin a post but how many chances will I ever get to write about genes, to be honest quite a lot.
There can be no doubting that the Human Genome Project has caused quite a scene.
Every head turned as they dreamed of this sequence being the one.
Despite huge amounts of criticism and many many years since the human genome was sequenced. Hardly a day goes by without some Daily Mail headline heralding the latest genetic breakthrough in the fight against Alzheimer's, Cancer, and Diabetes, in fact pretty much anything. Despite billions of dollars the genetic research on Heart Disease, Cancer, Alzheimer's etc is so insignificant that it is laughable. Well it would be if it weren't for the deep crisis which looms over science as it meanders out of control down the genetics pathway, desperately searching a reason to say I told you so. Yet more often than not falling dangerously close to being filled away in the Science Fiction section of every town library.
Have a little click on this link, unsurprisingly, everything other than the title is hidden away from view of the public.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21142536
If you were able to access it fully you'd find that it reported that little correlation exists between obesity, diabetes, and your genes.That it is basically a huge steaming pile of *%@^ that does not warrant neither anymore time nor investment.
I had intended to comment originally on the attempts to harvest human organs in pigs labeled gene editing. However, I thought I'd let the remarkable and much missed Ma-Wan Ho explain why the Human Genome is a total washout in this rather brilliant article she wrote.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/humangenome.php
"The fallacy of genetic determinism is widely recognized (18). Genuine genetic diseases that can be attributed to single genes constitute less than 2% of all diseases. And more and more geneticists are coming around to the view that even those are subject to so many other genetic and environmental influences that there is simply no such thing as a single-gene condition. For the rest, the association between the condition and the specific genes or genetic markers reduces to tenuous ‘predispositions’ or ‘susceptibility’.
‘Predipositions’ to cancer for example, conceals the fact that important environmental factors are left out of consideration. These include the hundreds of acknowledged industrial carcinogens polluting our environment. It is well-known that the incidence of cancer increases with industrialization and with the use of pesticides. Women in non-industrialized Asian countries have a much lower incidence of breast cancer than the women living in the industrialized west. However, when Asian women emigrate to Europe and the United States, their incidence of cancer jumps to that of the white European women within a single generation. Similarly, when DDT and other pesticides were phased out in Israel, breast cancer mortality in pre-menopausal women dropped by 30%. The overwhelming causes of ill-health are environmental and social. That is the conclusion of a growing body of research findings. Environmental influences swamp even large genetic differences.
The genetic determinist approach of the human genome programme is pernicious because it diverts attention and resources away from addressing the real causes of ill-health, while at the same time stigmatizing the victims and fueling eugenic tendencies in society. The health of nations will be infinitely better served by devoting resources to preventing environmental pollution and to phasing out agrochemicals, rather than by identifying all the genes that ‘predispose’ people to ill-health. The UK Royal Society produced a report in July, calling for national and international coordination to deal with the dangers posed to humans and wildlife by endocrine-disrupting chemicals, substances thought to mimic or block natural hormones in amounts too minute to trigger a conventional toxic response (19).
But it is the inherent complexity of the human organism and the lack of a concept of the organism as a coherent whole that will continue to frustrate all attempts at understanding health and disease within the dominant, reductionist framework."
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