You don't need authority or expert to trust. Really, there are no things in the world that sane person could not comprehend.
As for the discussed CRISPR technology there is nothing complex at all. Special proteine split DNA and compare one strand with provided short RNA If RNA is complement to splitted part of DNA this proteine cuts/change nucleotide/whatever at that position. It is some kind of text search function in programming. You have a word, you have a text, you search a word in a text, if found, do something with text at that position - replace a word, letter or delete something. Simple, isn't it, if you get rid of all that biomedical slang?
The problem with that extremely simple thing is that to do something sensible you have to know exactly what you want to change and what will be the result. And that is the problem.
Really, things are not complex too. DNA is a program. 3 pairs of nucleotides (codons) progam an aminoacid. Some codons program stop or start condition for reader. Proteins built from aminoacids, so sequence of codons from start to stop encode a protein. And so on. The problem is that nearly nobody really try to reverse engineer that programming language and system. Most just do random changes in the hope to get the needed result.
It is like some webmonkey, trying to get modern fancy web2.0 site at the deadline insert random pieces of code into some big project using Ctrl+V Ctrl+C (CRISPR) without any understanding how all that things work and what he is doing in the hope to get something that will look like needed website and will be paid by emplyer. Obviously, the result is awful for end user, but profitable for webmonkey and employer.
Sane programmer will study how computer works, how it execute code and what that code do, and then will change exactly what he need. But nobody do that. Evetually, there are no books "gene editing for beginners" or "complete apple DNA documentation".
That is the problem with gene editing, not your inability to understand how things work.
So happens you are talking to programmer.
Changing one line of code in such a complex mechanism as body... I went ahead of myself, changing ONE instruction, within line of code, of something as complex, is ULTIMATELY risky. Take Linux kernel. No, take windows, everybody is using this shit. If there is one programmer there that will risk one line of code, assuming cross references, differences in hardware system are running on, and all possible hardware events, response of drivers for devices relying on given code. Memory allocations, I can keep counting potential issues for long time. One team wrote pieces of graphic suite, other wrote directX, other is responsible for file system, boot record and what not. First and foremost I doubt there is one person there that can comprehend all the garbage of a code windows with whole package is. Second, it's just bad practice and if you plan on this kind of "patching" you plan ahead, encapsulate pieces of code you plan to modify, expand on or reuse, and you apply STEPS ahead, because at core you assume updates. I dont know many human engineers that worked on the code that my compiler build from apparently procedurally executed code, given to me from my parents.
Third and probably most important part is. If DNA is like a BOOK, then A,T,C,G sequences are WORDS, then like in grammar sequences of VERY specific words create sentences.
I find it naive to believe human can edit book that is 133 astronomic units long (by the Science lol, length of 1bp x number of BP per cell x number of cells in the body). Its very admirable to have faith in humanity, but I find it impossible to buy in gene editing yet. The day it will become as easy and natural like 1 and 1 makes 2 and children grasp it, SURE, but then we sre godlike so we don't care anymore anyways.
Don't know about Windows, but I routinely change few lines of Linux code from time to time. Since 2.2.X kernels. Never meet any problems with that. Yes, it is a large and complex project, but it is perfectly self-documented and it is not hard to understand how it works and what exactly you need to change to get what you want.
I find it naive to believe human can edit book that is 133 astronomic units long
That's not that scary. 3 billion nucleotide pairs is ~750Mb of data. 1 nucleotide pair is 2 bits, so 4 nucleotide pairs is a byte. Not a simple task, but not completely impossible too.
Also it is not very rational to start from human DNA. There is much simpler beings, there is complete plants with flowers, roots and all that stuff (not some chlorella cells) with DNA length of only ~160M pairs, it is 40Mb of data. Chlorella is ~30M pairs or 7.5Mb. Going to bacteria, there is species with ~160k pairs or 40kb of data. Absolutely possible things to start the journey. When you completely get how that 40kb of code works, it will be much easier to go further. May be there will be some regularities or heavily used identical sequences and you will be able to split larger code into "standard libraries" and the main program, that will make further progress easier.
Linux kenel 5.10 is 1.1Gb of code unpacked, meanwhile.
Its very admirable to have faith in humanity, but I find it impossible to buy in gene editing yet
Me too. I don't buy in their gene editing. But I don't see anything wrong in starting the long road of real science and studying of gene editing in the sane and scientific way.
I don't try to tell that we have to edit our plants, pets or ourselves right now in hurry. I just try to point out that gene editing is not some pure evil that should be hated and thrown out. We should study it, get all possible knowledge about it and then, use it for our needs if necessary.
I wish you good luck on your journey and well, that's it. I'm not taking my part in it. I will jump on the train when we are godlike and I can buy my kit in 1e shop. Up to then I don't mind to be called village idiot. Not like it changes anything. Not planning to undertake any gene therapy, so I'm not worrying about consequences.
You don't need authority or expert to trust. Really, there are no things in the world that sane person could not comprehend.
As for the discussed CRISPR technology there is nothing complex at all. Special proteine split DNA and compare one strand with provided short RNA If RNA is complement to splitted part of DNA this proteine cuts/change nucleotide/whatever at that position. It is some kind of text search function in programming. You have a word, you have a text, you search a word in a text, if found, do something with text at that position - replace a word, letter or delete something. Simple, isn't it, if you get rid of all that biomedical slang?
The problem with that extremely simple thing is that to do something sensible you have to know exactly what you want to change and what will be the result. And that is the problem.
Really, things are not complex too. DNA is a program. 3 pairs of nucleotides (codons) progam an aminoacid. Some codons program stop or start condition for reader. Proteins built from aminoacids, so sequence of codons from start to stop encode a protein. And so on. The problem is that nearly nobody really try to reverse engineer that programming language and system. Most just do random changes in the hope to get the needed result.
It is like some webmonkey, trying to get modern fancy web2.0 site at the deadline insert random pieces of code into some big project using Ctrl+V Ctrl+C (CRISPR) without any understanding how all that things work and what he is doing in the hope to get something that will look like needed website and will be paid by emplyer. Obviously, the result is awful for end user, but profitable for webmonkey and employer.
Sane programmer will study how computer works, how it execute code and what that code do, and then will change exactly what he need. But nobody do that. Evetually, there are no books "gene editing for beginners" or "complete apple DNA documentation".
That is the problem with gene editing, not your inability to understand how things work.
So happens you are talking to programmer. Changing one line of code in such a complex mechanism as body... I went ahead of myself, changing ONE instruction, within line of code, of something as complex, is ULTIMATELY risky. Take Linux kernel. No, take windows, everybody is using this shit. If there is one programmer there that will risk one line of code, assuming cross references, differences in hardware system are running on, and all possible hardware events, response of drivers for devices relying on given code. Memory allocations, I can keep counting potential issues for long time. One team wrote pieces of graphic suite, other wrote directX, other is responsible for file system, boot record and what not. First and foremost I doubt there is one person there that can comprehend all the garbage of a code windows with whole package is. Second, it's just bad practice and if you plan on this kind of "patching" you plan ahead, encapsulate pieces of code you plan to modify, expand on or reuse, and you apply STEPS ahead, because at core you assume updates. I dont know many human engineers that worked on the code that my compiler build from apparently procedurally executed code, given to me from my parents. Third and probably most important part is. If DNA is like a BOOK, then A,T,C,G sequences are WORDS, then like in grammar sequences of VERY specific words create sentences. I find it naive to believe human can edit book that is 133 astronomic units long (by the Science lol, length of 1bp x number of BP per cell x number of cells in the body). Its very admirable to have faith in humanity, but I find it impossible to buy in gene editing yet. The day it will become as easy and natural like 1 and 1 makes 2 and children grasp it, SURE, but then we sre godlike so we don't care anymore anyways.
Don't know about Windows, but I routinely change few lines of Linux code from time to time. Since 2.2.X kernels. Never meet any problems with that. Yes, it is a large and complex project, but it is perfectly self-documented and it is not hard to understand how it works and what exactly you need to change to get what you want.
That's not that scary. 3 billion nucleotide pairs is ~750Mb of data. 1 nucleotide pair is 2 bits, so 4 nucleotide pairs is a byte. Not a simple task, but not completely impossible too.
Also it is not very rational to start from human DNA. There is much simpler beings, there is complete plants with flowers, roots and all that stuff (not some chlorella cells) with DNA length of only ~160M pairs, it is 40Mb of data. Chlorella is ~30M pairs or 7.5Mb. Going to bacteria, there is species with ~160k pairs or 40kb of data. Absolutely possible things to start the journey. When you completely get how that 40kb of code works, it will be much easier to go further. May be there will be some regularities or heavily used identical sequences and you will be able to split larger code into "standard libraries" and the main program, that will make further progress easier.
Linux kenel 5.10 is 1.1Gb of code unpacked, meanwhile.
Me too. I don't buy in their gene editing. But I don't see anything wrong in starting the long road of real science and studying of gene editing in the sane and scientific way.
I don't try to tell that we have to edit our plants, pets or ourselves right now in hurry. I just try to point out that gene editing is not some pure evil that should be hated and thrown out. We should study it, get all possible knowledge about it and then, use it for our needs if necessary.
I wish you good luck on your journey and well, that's it. I'm not taking my part in it. I will jump on the train when we are godlike and I can buy my kit in 1e shop. Up to then I don't mind to be called village idiot. Not like it changes anything. Not planning to undertake any gene therapy, so I'm not worrying about consequences.