I love to see this kind of article, but I can't help noticing the hyper-reductionist mindset behind a lot of the goals. The connectome of the nematode brain has been known for years and we still don't even have a bad theory of how it works. Measuring the location of every molecule in a cell or organism likewise is useless if the system is computationally irreducible (Wolfram has important insights on this front). I would argue that even today industrial technology has come nowhere close to creating structures more complex than basic biology.
I argue that the application of reductionist thinking to biology is holding humanity back. The mindset worked well in physics and basic chemistry, but we are making the mistake of fighting the last war so to speak by applying reductionism to biology. Ultimately humans want to harness biology more effectively to serve their needs. The mechanism is merely a hypothetical means to those ends. If we could embrace and refine methods for reshaping biology as a technology and let go of the need for theories and mechanisms then progress would resume. But we live in a world of grant proposals and papers overflowing with clever explanations, so our research culture is fundamentally at odds with this change in approach (at least for now). I believe any change has to come from outside the institutions, from amateur tinkerers undertaking inspired and irrational experiments with no precise idea about where it will lead.
I love to see this kind of article, but I can't help noticing the hyper-reductionist mindset behind a lot of the goals. The connectome of the nematode brain has been known for years and we still don't even have a bad theory of how it works. Measuring the location of every molecule in a cell or organism likewise is useless if the system is computationally irreducible (Wolfram has important insights on this front). I would argue that even today industrial technology has come nowhere close to creating structures more complex than basic biology.
I argue that the application of reductionist thinking to biology is holding humanity back. The mindset worked well in physics and basic chemistry, but we are making the mistake of fighting the last war so to speak by applying reductionism to biology. Ultimately humans want to harness biology more effectively to serve their needs. The mechanism is merely a hypothetical means to those ends. If we could embrace and refine methods for reshaping biology as a technology and let go of the need for theories and mechanisms then progress would resume. But we live in a world of grant proposals and papers overflowing with clever explanations, so our research culture is fundamentally at odds with this change in approach (at least for now). I believe any change has to come from outside the institutions, from amateur tinkerers undertaking inspired and irrational experiments with no precise idea about where it will lead.