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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 178 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 178, September 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Can crime or drug addiction be explained by biology or inheritance? Some scientists would argue that the way to solve these problems is through genetic engineering. John Baxter examines the Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project is the biggest scientific project since the space race. In the US its managers are planning a budget of $200 million a year for the next 15 years. The project is an attempt to chemically map a typical human’s genes. Genes consist of DNA, a complex chemical that consists of a long series of chemical units called bases. The order of the bases specifies the composition of proteins in the body. A single gene contains the DNA specifying the composition of a single protein. The ultimate aim of the Human Genome Project is to define the order of the 3 billion bases contained in human DNA.
The project was launched almost simultaneously in two competing American institutions – in both cases for reasons of prestige and profit. In 1984 the University of Santa Cruz had just lost a bid to build a giant telescope. It was casting around for another big money, prestige project and it hit upon the Human Genome Project. The nuclear research laboratories of the American Department of Energy (DOE) were also looking for new work. The end of the Cold War meant that much of the money for nuclear weapons research was drying up. The DOE also had some experience of research in human genetics – it did the research into the effects of radiation on human genes.
Vast fortunes will be made, not least by the leading scientists who run the project. These are not disinterested searchers after truth. Biotechnology companies, the companies which exploit the new genetic technology, have developed directly out of university research labs. Almost without exception the leading molecular biologists have prominent positions in these companies, which stand to reap huge benefits.
The project is the practical outcome of the idea that everything worth knowing about human beings is determined by, or at least limited by, the genes. Put at its simplest the idea is that the so called universal features of human nature – heterosexuality, selfishness, violence in men or submissiveness in women – are carved in our genes.
Medical conditions like cancer and heart disease are treated in the same way. It may well be that these diseases have a genetic component. But genes do not cause cancer or heart attacks. Cancer generally develops after exposure to triggers like radiation or certain chemicals. Heart disease is brought on by poor diet and stress.
The idea that the actions and biology of human beings can simply be reduced to the structure of their genes is an example of reductionism. This is a form of logic which says that to understand anything we have to break it down into its smallest parts. To understand the properties of matter we break it down into molecules and atoms.
We can trace the rise of reductionism to the bourgeois revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. Before this time the natural philosophers who looked at nature saw it as one mystical whole. Everything was ordained by god and the job of the natural philosopher was to try to understand the world god had created.
Under the emerging capitalist society a new view arose. The new factories needed individuals who were free to sell their labour. Society was seen as being made of atomised individuals free to move from role to role. The properties of society resulted from the sum of the properties of the individuals. The new science mirrored this view. Rather than seeing nature as a mystical whole, it saw nature as something which could be explained by breaking it down into its constituent parts. This way of thinking has to a large extent persisted to the present.
Explaining where reductionism comes from is not the same thing as proving that it is wrong. Indeed reductionism has proved tremendously powerful at tackling simple systems. But it falls down when dealing with complex systems.
An alternative way of approaching genetics has been outlined by Steven Rose, R.C. Lewontin and others in the dialectical biology group. Instead of making DNA the master molecule and describing genes as making proteins, they describe genes as simply a part of a complex biochemical system. By themselves genes make nothing. It is only by interacting with the other chemicals inside the cell that proteins are produced. In turn, which proteins are synthesised and which are not is determined by a complex dialectical interaction between the cell and its environment.
The reductionist philosophy behind the Human Genome Project leads to a number of problems. The first is trying to sequence the human genome. But there is no one single genome. Every human being has a unique genetic constitution. If gene sequencing is to lead to detection of inherited conditions then it would have to compare the genomes of thousands of individuals before they could pick out which differences are significant and which are not – a waste of time and money.
More efficient, targeted techniques exist which have already pinpointed the genes for a number of simple inherited conditions like cystic fibrosis. Rather than wading through the billions of bases of DNA, targeted techniques start from the symptoms of the disease and work back to the genetic errors.
This type of research has already yielded valuable results. It has also demonstrated that reductionist logic in its simplest form is wrong. Haemophilia B is an inherited condition which can be traced to a single gene. So far the reductionist logic works. But if we follow the logic we would predict that there would be a single error on the gene. Not so. In fact research in Sweden has shown that in 216 individuals 115 different chemical errors lead to indistinguishable symptoms. If 115 different errors lead to the same disease, what hope is there of finding the relevant mistakes in the 3 billion bases of human DNA?
It is claimed that the Human Genome Project will lead to a greater understanding of inherited conditions and therefore to their treatment. But greater understanding doesn’t necessarily lead to treatment. Fibrosis is a single gene inherited condition which is very well understood, but treatments are still far from satisfactory. In fact medical advances have often come without any great understanding. In the 1940s scientists found that certain chemicals killed bacteria but not human beings. Antibiotics were born. It was 40 years before they began to understand how they worked.
Eventually some treatments may emerge out of the project. But more efficient, targeted methods exist which could achieve the same results. The project receives backing because it reinforces ruling class ideas about the world, and because governments and big business are frightened of being left behind in the biotechnology race.
In a sane society genetic research would be carried out to help humanity, not to feed the coffers of huge institutions. Research would be carried out without a multitude of competing research groups ploughing through an unimaginable number of chemical bases, many of which are irrelevant.
Socialists don’t oppose all genetic research. The work on cystic fibrosis means women can now make an informed choice about whether to continue with a pregnancy. However, under capitalism such choices are often not free.
Genetic engineering has allowed scientists to programme bacteria to produce vital human proteins like insulin, clotting factors and growth factors vital in the treatment of a number of diseases. The fact that they are produced by giant biotechnology companies means that exorbitant prices are charged.
Without the developments of science and technology socialism would be impossible. Genetic science can increase our understanding of the way our bodies work and can increase our ability to shape the world around us. But until science is controlled democratically, by the vast majority in the interests of the majority, much of our human ingenuity will be wasted.
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