A Whig History of CRISPR

genotopia.scienceblog.com

28 points·perugolate··7 comments

Interesting analysis from my perspective as definitely not a good writer. One comment though:

"But science is no longer done in monasteries. Competition, pride, ego, greed, and politics play all too great a role in determining who gets credit, who wins the prizes, and who gets into the textbooks."

This really was never any different.

Science was done in the Royal Society, there certainly was no competition, pride, ego, greed or politics there!

To be sure, there was. I had in mind, principally, the monastery in Brno, where a certain monk did some breeding experiments with peas in the mid-19th century. (I am the author of the article.)

Lander is still smarting from when private industry guy Venter from out of nowhere creamed the government human genome project an order of magnitude faster and cheaper.

In a way it's a shame how humans seem wired to want "The One Guy" to credit for any complex outcome requiring thousands of unsung incremental improvements.

crispr is fascinating, as is this back-and-forth in the scientific community about its history

I hope that scientists who have their reputations bound up in its history don't waste their time trying to stake claim to it.

They will, but there are lessons to be had. For instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war, which consumed half the energy of a brilliant man and did little for the progress of the world.

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