Craig Venter’s Genetic Typo
26th March 2011
In order to distinguish their synthetic DNA from that naturally present in the bacterium, Venter’s team coded several famous quotes into their DNA, including one from James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist of a Young Man: “To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.”
After announcing their work, Venter explained, his team received a cease and desist letter from Joyce’s estate, saying that he’d used the Irish writer’s work without permission. ”We thought it fell under fair use,” said Venter.
There are circumstances under which the phrase ‘utterly absurd’ is totally inadequate. This is one of them. Our current system of ‘intellectual property’ laws is another.
The synthetic DNA also included a quote from physicist Richard Feynman, “What I cannot build, I cannot understand.”
That prompted a note from Caltech, the school where Feyman taught for decades. They sent Venter a photo of the blackboard on which Feynman composed the quote –and it showed that he actually wrote, “What I cannot create, I do not understand.”
“We agreed what was on the Internet was wrong,” said Venter. “So we’re going back to change the genetic code to correct it.”
Would that other areas of life were so amenable to improvement.