So They Say

The Genome on A Patent Platter? Congress, of course, does not own the human genome; nor is there any way under American law for Congress to stake out hegemony over our double helix and transfer a portion of this hegemony to others. The key lies in appreciating the First Amendment. My notion is that the biological universe and our perceptions of that universe comprise an idea marketplace. Debate over competing theories of this biological reality lies at the core of free expression and presupposes universal access to the reality under investigation. As Congress lacks the power to punish dissemination of these theories, so Congress lacks power to carve out segments of that idea marketplace and put them in the hands of any person or group to be allocated as they see fit. ... Shakespeare would be entitled to clothe Hamlet’s speeches in copyright dress, but Congress could not hand Einstein E = mc^2 on a patent platter and similarly cannot (even if it wanted to) hand the human genome to [Walter] Gilbert. Our genetic constitution belongs to us. —Ira H. Carmen Letter to the Editor Science, p. 1555 September 25, 1987 Foiling Fraud Science has traditionally been looked upon with respect, sometimes bordering on reverence. While the public may view science and scientists more realistically today, it still generally holds both in high regard. Science is unlikely to become less worldly, less influenced by commercial factors, or less competitive in the near future. Therefore, to minimize the possibility of fraud, scientific research supervisors will have to establish and enforce strict standards in their laboratories. If they are to reap the benefits of prestige and secure funding, they must fully assume all the responsibilities of authorship. Full participation means that they will also have to monitor research procedures and scrutinize the results. Furthermore, as mentors, it is up to established professionals to make aspiring researchers aware of the pressures, and to teach by example the principles that will enable younger scientists to resist any temptation to do opportunistic or shabby work. —Patricia K. Woolf “‘Pressure to Publish’ is a Lame Excuse for Scientific Fraud” The Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A52 September 23, 1987 Preserving Evolution’s Victory Professional biologists and educators need to continue to be very active in the creation-evolution fight if the Supreme Court decision is to have a lasting, positive effect. First, we need to support elementary and secondary school science teachers. Those teaching evolutionist topics must be encouraged, and those under pressure to teach creationism or to omit evolution must be able to turn to us for help. Some state academies of science (eg., Iowa and Ohio) have standing committees that are designed to mediate such disputes. We need to get involved with such committees, or work to form comparable groups. Let us learn from the mistakes after the Scopes victory, another such “victory” might mark the end of meaningful evolution education in our public schools. —Michael Zimmerman “Viewpoint: Keep Guard Up After Evolution Victory” BioScience, p.636 October 1987 Soviet Scientists Won’t Be Ignored The Soviet Academy of Sciences, which for decades has been praised abroad as the one remaining institution in the Soviet Union to preserve multi-candidate elections by secret ballot is now being attacked for its “lack of democracy”. Comments by scientists . . . call the academy a “stronghold of obsolete thinking” and a “fortress against the democratization of scientific activity”.... The basic difficulty appears to be the contrast between the academy’s original role as a small, self-electing elite and its current function as the principal coordinator of scientific activity for the entire Soviet Union. Although this new role is regularly stressed in political extortionists, it has never been reflected in the academy statutes, which even in their latest revision state that “the Academy consists of Full Members and Corresponding Members”, ignoring the thousands of scientists employed in academy institutes. And these scientists are unwilling to be ignored any longer. —Vera Rich “Soviet Academy Condemned for ‘Lack of Democracy' Nature, p. 193, September 17, 1987 The Perils of Perfection In Publishing In an age when “scientific prose" is a virtual synonym for “literary Novocain,” it seems hard to believe that American scientific journals once contained some of the most exciting writing of their era. Two hundred years ago, American scientists publishing their research offered not only sound empirical data but small jokes and vast vistas, the fear of God and the hope of an American paradise. But early scientific papers offered more than stylistic beauties; they included something essential about the nature of scientific endeavor—its difficulties, the prospects for failure and the flexibility necessary to do scientific work. While a frank discussion of troubles was fundamental to early scientific writing, modern science favors an image of perfection. “Nowadays,” a widely published biochemist told me recently, “journals don’t even want you to discuss your negative experiments. The very hint that you might have erred makes you insufficiently Olympian to be in print.” —Bob Coleman Science Writing~ Too Good to Be True?” The New York Times Book Review, p. 1 September 27, 1987 We’re All Created Equal In a life of the Honest to God bishop John Robinson, to be published next month, there is an account of a visit to Robinson in a Cambridge hospital by Sir Hermann Bondi, now Master of Chur- chill College Cambridge, then chairman of the Natural Environment Research Council. “God,” said Bondi to Robinson, “was recently applying for a grant from a scientific institution to study the origins of Creation. “It was, declined on three grounds: first that there was no visible evidence that He had done any work on the subject for a long time; second because no one had been able to replicate the experiment; and third because the only records of it had not been published in any recognized scientific journal....” —“Creative Accounting” The Times Higher Education Supplement, p.2 September 18, 1987 Impossible to Get Right Professor Eric Ash, rector of lmperial College, London, last night poked gentle fun at the government’s attempts to restructure funding for British science as a way to get greater economic benefits. “Aim low,” he counselled the Institution of Electrical Engineers on his first night as its new president. “Let us be content with not getting it dreadfully wrong,” he went on in a text which drew its inspiration from Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Ash, an electronics man and head of one of Britain’s biggest research institutions, is all for scrutinising the scientific disciplines to sort out those most likely to lead to fruitful application. He acknowledges that political criticism of the academic community for failing to make best use of scientific resources has some justification. As he sees it the true situation in research is rather like parenthood—impossible to get right. “All you can hope for is not to get it too terribly wrong.” —“Aiming Low” Financial Times, p.14 October 2, 1987 Tinkering With Nature In pursuit of leaner mammals and fatter fowl, scientists have been tinkering with nature. While animal-rights activists criticize the trend, scientists argue that transgenic and other research will benefit consumers. “Name me a field of human endeavor in which we haven’t played God,” says John Hasler of Em Tran Inc., which markets bovine ova. “If we didn’t, we’d still be in caves throwing spears.”... Some scientists concede that gene manipulation still isn’t very scientific. “It’s a throw of the dice,” says Jill Fabricant, founder of Houston’s Biosyne Corp. Two years ago, her staff tried to create a meatier rabbit using rat-gene injections. But most of the rabbits died, and the offspring of those that didn’t invariably grew up without a trace of rat. “Until we get it down to a science,” she says, “it is still an art.” —Tony Cantu “Transgenic Research on Animals Creates Some Strange Beasts” Wall Street Journal, p. 1 September 4, 1987

So They Say

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The Genome on A Patent Platter?

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