Heroes Not Zombies

Excuse the title – panto season is upon us!

Are you, like me, fed up with headlines suggesting that now “scientists” have found the gene for X then a cure for X is just around the corner? I think it’s such nonsense. This idea that we will be able to read someone’s DNA like a computer program and figure out exactly what diseases they are going to experience, and head those diseases off at the pass is mechanistic, reductionist nonsense.

A recent article in ScienceDaily is headed “The gene-environment Enigma”. What’s the enigma? Well, it turns out just having a gene doesn’t guarantee what effect that gene will have. What’s important is the “environmental” effect which is different for every individual so individuals experience different effects of the same genes.

The effects of a person’s genes — and, therefore, their risk of disease — are greatly influenced by their environment,” says senior author Barak Cohen, PhD, a geneticist at Washington University School of Medicine. “So, if personalized medicine is going to work, we need to find a way to measure a human’s environment.”

Hmm. Measure a human’s environment…..good luck with that one….ever encountered one of the characteristics of complex systems……that outcomes are not predictable in detail in individuals? It’s not possible to measure all the potential factors involved in producing the state of a unique organism which is embedded in multiple environments (physical, relational, social, cultural, semantic etc).

Still, scientists of faith find it hard to give up on their fundamental beliefs……

Cohen says he’s not hopeless when it comes to personalized medicine. As scientists conduct ever-larger studies to identify rare and common variants underlying diseases such as cancer, diabetes and schizophrenia, they will be more likely to uncover variants that have larger effects on disease. Even then, however, a person’s environment will be important, he adds.