Time to treat cells as agents with agendas
If scientists think too mechanistically about cells, bioengineering will come grinding to a halt, argue biologist Michael Levin and philosopher Daniel Dennett. Cells — and tissues and brainless whole organisms — are agents with their own information-processing competency that lets them ‘decide’ where to go, what signals to release and what cells to stick to, write Levin and Dennet. If we ignore that, we will try and fail to micromanage cells into functional organs, and we won’t know which genes to edit when creating organs for transplantation. “Treating cells like dumb bricks to be micromanaged is playing the game with our hands tied behind our backs,” the authors say. They do set limits on cell cognition, however. Cells are like “idiot savants with some amazing talents but no insight at all into those talents”.
Aeon | 22 min
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario