Sunday, October 15, 2006

Dead Cats and DNA

Sadly, the California company of Genetic Savings & Clone is to close at the end of this year. This company offered to clone pets and it did manage to do five cats, though only two were sold. This doesn't surprise me, $50,000 is a lot for a cat. GSC did recently reduce its price to $32,000, though it still seems a bit steep. But, of course, the justification of the price was that you were buying not just any old cat, but your cat. Indeed, the company was founded by one John Sperling who wanted to have his own dog, Missy, cloned. This never happened. The idea that a cloned version of your pet is still your pet is absurd. I suppose with cats - behaviourally dull creatures - one could maintain this illusion. The reality, however, is that GSC was trying to make its money out of one of the great contemporary superstitions. This susperstition is faith in the magical powers of DNA. There is, I noticed yesterday, a film production company called DNA and cosmetics are daily sold that claim to protect or repair our DNA. 'It's in our DNA,' is a routine corporate cliche. Scientists have tended to encourage this. When I visited the appalling James Watson in his Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories on Long Island, the first thing I saw was a huge sculpture of the double helix in the lobby. It was the image of a god which I can imagine being unearthed by some future people who will find it as distant and incomprehensible as the wooden statue of A'a or Tangaroa (we don't know which) in the British Museum. The DNA superstition is based on two misunderstandings. First, it is popularly thought that we have established a clear link between DNA and the whole organism. We haven't. It has turned out to be fantastically complex and the effect of environment from the womb onwards is far from being understood. Secondly, personality, the thing we most value in each other, is thought to be somehow encoded in DNA. It isn't. Certain traits may well be, as identical twins demonstrate, but even such twins are still alone in their imaginations with their own thoughts and impulses. William Empson wrote a great poem. Homage to the British Museum, about Tangaroa, that alien god. It includes the line, 'Let us stand here and admit that we have no road.' Empson knew much more than James Watson and a dead cat, whatever its associations, is never anything but dead.

14 comments:

  1. Bryan, from where do you get this stuff? It's fascinating, seriously.

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  2. James,
    The dead cat company story is on Wired.com, follow the link. The rest is the accumulated debris rattling around in the penny-farthing hell I like to call my mind.

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  3. You should seriously think about cloning that penny farthing hell, Bryan. You could live forever.
    And off the topic as usual, I see from Frank's blog you're a Powys man. I'm a confirmed one also but not read too much yet. The opening paragraph of Glastonbury Romance was enough to draw me in.

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  4. "the appalling James Watson": what's so appalling about him?

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  5. Vain, egotistical, supremely self-important. I don't think I've ever met anybody who would claim to like him.

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  6. Yes you have Bryan! On p99 of 'The God Delusion', Richard Dawkins alludes to an interview with "my friend Jim Watson, founding genius of the Human Genome Project." I think I can guess your retort...

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  7. Gordon,
    You are me Nemesis. Mind you, Dawkins does not say he likes him. George Walden always says, 'your friend' to me when I like somebody he doesn't.

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  8. I was going to suggest 'vanity likes company', but then I haven't met either of them, so that would be grossly unfair!

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  9. Andrew,
    I am a Powys man but not a very consistent one. I was introduced to the brothers by John Gray. Wolf Solent by JCP is the best I've read.

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  10. I've read Wolf Solent also, Bryan. Superb stuff. Glastonbury and Brazen Head also, the latter not quite so satisfying.

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  11. You visited the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories? You were just a stone throw from my house.

    I agree with you to some extent but I also think you are underplaying the importance of DNA. I wouldn't say that DNA is destiny but DNA has profound implications. Just ask anyone who has three copies of 21 or carries the gene for any of the hundreds of genetic conditions. But too many people think of clones as identical copies. A clone is simply an identical twin. Twins may look the same but even twins raised in the same household will not be identical adults. Although perhaps we should keep our eyes onm the Olsen girls (Mary-Kate and Ashley) to see how that plays out.

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  12. "Vain, egotistical, supremely self-important." I admit that that's the impression that I've formed too, perhaps with an added "sly". But have you met him? (I haven't.)

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  13. I'm afraid I have, several times but once for a longish interview. He later denied saying things I had on tape.

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  14. well i think its totally cool to clone your dead animal. but its wayy expensive fa sho!

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