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by marciovm123
5834 days ago
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Well said. Another failing arises from just how complicated biology is, and how little we understand of it. Unlike in computer programming, in biology reliable layers of abstraction do not yet exist. The equivalent of changing one line of code in a cell's program (through a drug, gene, whatever) in a sense has unknown side-effects on every other line of code. A programmer's approach to working with or trying to understand such a system quickly leads to maddening (and unsupported) conclusions. |
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In biology, reliable layers of abstraction do not exist. Period.
Biological technologies may arise with enough flexibility and processing power to deal with this situation. But situation itself won't change. Life simply evolved without fixed boundaries to its layers of abstraction. Every bit of evidence we have points to the genetic code as being more akin spaghetti coded assembly language than to any human-comprehensible programming language. Why would the genetic "programming" system respect any layers of abstraction understandable by humans? Life's been chugging away with 4 billion years of "whatever works".
Roge J. Williams' work early in the 20th showed how in just about every single biochemical system in the body, something like 20+% of the population and that with these outliers not correlating, every person's biochemical system actually work in somewhat unique fashion. That is hard manage and control from an engineering perspective, to say the least. See http://www.amazon.com/Biochemical-Individuality-Roger-Willia...