It’s not just slow progress! It’s a Debacle!

February 28, 2003

This headline and front-page callout in the conservative daily The Washington Post had me laughing out loud this morning.

Genetics Debacle Analyzed
The dream of gene therapy is unmet 50 years after DNA discovery feted.

The article makes a lot more sense, and the subhead on the actual page says “Gene Therapy Debacle,” which is more accurate than condemning the whole field, but the headline is something else. How many people will look at that front page and decide, without looking at the article, that the entire field of genetics has been discredited? When all that’s really happened is scientists worldwide have smacked themselves in the forhead and said “D’oh! It’s much harder than we thought!”

I think at least part of the blame lies with thinking DNA was like a computer program. “Oh, we just toggle this bit here and that comes on, and we toggle this bit here and that goes off…” Well, yeah, it kinda sorta looks like that. But if it’s a computer program it’s a hacked-together one written with zero data-hiding, numerous “GOTOs,” and half-assed tinkers.

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