And the REAL (tm) Truth will Set you Free...

Nobel Prize for revolutionising medicine.

The latest news is that these two characters have won the Nobel Prize for their work in Gene reserch. Now, I was going to lay into the Nobel Prize as being corrupt and needing a revamp, but I'm not sure...maybe they made a mistake ? They have got it right before.

But awarding this prize for a technique that has'nt even been proven to cure cancer, or whatever...that seems a little premature to me.

And look at the technique it's self. A method of turning on and off genes at will ? Now, I don't claim to fully understand their technique but my mind boggles at the danger of this thing. what if their technique escapes into a virus, or the hands of a lunatic? Could this not be rather dangerous ? Like finding out how to flick the registers in your computer by bypassing the keyboard that YOU have control over ?

Anyway, anyone who has been following my rap will know that I have a pathological desire for revenge against the Scientific establishment. Actually....no! That's not true. I try and be measured in my critiscism. But my health was damaged by a very faulty pharmaceutical I was given as a kid. A drug that came out of the same mentality as this new technique.

No doubt Nobel Prizes were also given out at the time I was given this drug (in 1976....the drug it's self was created in 1956).

These scientists remind me of neglected kids picking the wings of insects in the back garden and messing around with fire.

Look...your body is an organism that, if you think about it, has developed over the entire 13 billion history of the Universe. How can we possibly hope to fully understand all the nuances and complexities of such an organism that probably does'nt even work in the machine like terms that modern medicine seems to insist on ?

I am reminded of the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Concerning Flight". Janeway roams a planet with a character from her Holodeck program...namely Leonarda Da Vinci. Of course, being programmed for holodeck life only, this leads to some hilarious situations.

At one point Leonardo is shot....the beam (of "lightning" as he puts it) passes right through him...but he still lives.

Of course being a Da Vinci, he finds this rather disturbing.

(Janeway is Catalina to him).

"Catalina this is not possible!".

"Catalina...are we spirits....are we dead?".

(And now I quote verbatim)

Janeway: "Listen! If you were something other than a human being, if you were a different kind of animal. If you were a small bird, a sparrow. What would your world be like ?" Leonardo: "I should make my home in a tree...a branch of an elm."

"I should hunt insects for food, store for my nest, and in the springtime I should sing for a companion." Janeway: "You would know nothing of the politics of Florence, the cutting of marble, or mathematics...?"

Leonardo: "Of course not."

Janeway: "But why not!". Leonardo: "My mind would be too small." Janeway: "As a sparrow your mind would be too small, even with the best of teachers."

Leonardo: "If aristotle himself were to perch on my branch and lecture until he fell off from exhaustion...still the limits of my mind would prevent me from understanding."

Janeway: "And as a man, can you accept that there might be certain realities BEYOND THE LIMITS OF YOUR COMPREHENSION ?" (my emphasis)

Leonardo: " (pause)... If I could not accept that, then, I would be A FOOL". (my emphasis).

(voices of pursuers)

Janeway: "Come on !"

You'll have to watch the episode to find out who the pursuers are...but is'nt this what we're seeing here ? People who insist on going beyond their boundaries? Trying to understand everthing...fiddling with the workings of everything ! And look at the consequences of that. For a start a kind of madness of the mind, as the hubris of 'playing God' takes over, and terrible, terrible consequences because of the arrogance of thinking that everything they do must be faultless. There are limitations.

And yet if we work with the Universe instead of against it, then the rewards are literally astronomical.

The Ginko I take has developed in co-evolution with humans for millions of years and has proved beneficial. Do I have to understand how it works or prove it's effectiveness scientifically to the n'th degree for it to work ?

DJBarney