Wired News: Mendel's Law May Be Flawed

I heard this story on NPR yesterday and in Wired today. If genetics are not what we think they are, what does that say about our use of gentics to make medical decisions? Til we nail this down, how can we ethically make life and death decisions based on genetics?


Wired News: Mendel's Law May Be Flawed: "Challenging a scientific law of inheritance that has stood for 150 years, scientists say plants sometimes select better bits of DNA in order to develop normally even when their predecessors carried genetic flaws.

The conclusion by Purdue University molecular biologists contradicts at least some basic rules of plant evolution that were believed to be absolute since the mid-1800s, when Austrian monk Gregor Mendel experimented with peas and saw that traits are passed on from one generation to the next. Mendelian genetics has been the foundation of both crop hybridization and the understanding of basic cell mutations and trait inheritance."

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi Terry! I've been reading your blog for a while, but your comment on using genetics to make life or death decisions came a bit out of left field for me, a genetics student. Off the cuff I'd guess you're referring to pre-natal genetic screening, which of course as a pro-life Christian I do not support, but in that case I would say the problem is not the use of genetics per se but the ethical framework (or absence of one) that allows abortion. Genetics, like every other science, is centred around imprecise theories that change over time; this doesn't mean we shouldn't use science, but rather that we should remember that science is just a partial source of information that can be used responsibility or irresponsibility by individual human beings. So in my mind the problem is not "genetics" but rather the common, pathetic moral vacuity of many of those who base their decisions on it.

Blessings,
Michael
1:28 AM
pruittcommunications said…
I often ask questions that I really are meant to be answered in a vareity of ways. Your answer is the type of answer is exactly the type of thing I am trying to involk. I see you are in your area of expertise. Thanks for sharing from the position of wisdom and study.

I did not want to just talk about pre-natal screening, I have heard a lot other uses theoretically being used, but I don't know the specifics. Perhaps I reached to transcend the abortion issue but failed.
9:20 PM
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