What's the most practical use of biology?
Posted: August 17th, 2014, 9:52 pm
by Philosophy Explorer
In connection with biology, direct or indirect, there's been a lot of news about DNA. Now just because there's been a lot of news doesn't make it the most practical use of biology.
I intend to do several threads like this one on different branches of science. In the meantime, we can explore this one.
PhilX
Re: What's the most practical use of biology?
Posted: August 21st, 2014, 5:04 pm
by A Poster He or I
I am an identical twin, so if one believes that DNA is everything then in effect there is another "me" walking around living an idependent life. I've had over 5 decades to observe my brother and myself vis-a-vis my brother. At best, genetics creates predispositions in behavior and cognition. About the only thing I can count on about my brother's DNA is that if I got a kidney transplant from him, the doctors wouldn't need to tissue-type it for its rejection potential.
A few years ago I did coursework in medical information management, and I did a paper on kidney function. My research included an article about attempts to isolate in the human genome the allele(s) for polycystic kidney disease. The geneticists concluded that although the disease clearly involved about 2 dozen sequences across a couple of different chromosomes, how variation in these sequences actually manifested for the disease was unsolvable due to the complex interrelationships of these sequences with the rest of the human genome.
So I don't think we're going to be seeing genetic surgery covered by insurance policies anytime soon.