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Michael Crichton on Why Gene Patents Are Bad
BayaWeaver writes "Michael Crichton, author of The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park has made a strong case against gene patents in an op-ed for the New York Times. Striking an emotional chord, he begins with 'You, or someone you love, may die because of a gene patent that should never have been granted in the first place. Sound far-fetched? Unfortunately, it's only too real.' From there, he moves on to use logic, statistics, and his way with words to make his point. Arguing against the high costs of gene therapies thanks to related patents, he eventually offers hope that one day legislation will de-incentivize the hoarding of scientific knowledge. As he points out: 'When SARS was spreading across the globe, medical researchers hesitated to study it — because of patent concerns. There is no clearer indication that gene patents block innovation, inhibit research and put us all at risk.'"
Since his anti Global Warming book, he no longer appears to be as popular. In fact, I would guess that that little bit of political foley probably cost him dearly. Now, he comes up with something intelligent and I suspect that it will be easy for others to cast doubt on his arguments.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm not sure I'm too keen on Michael Crichton after his comments about global warming. I don't think gene patents are a swell idea, but I'm not sure I'd hold up Crichton as an authority on scientific matters.
The most compelling argument for me was this:
"Countries that don't have gene patents actually offer better gene testing than we do, because when multiple labs are allowed to do testing, more mutations are discovered, leading to higher-quality tests."
Making an economic argument, that other countries will gain an advantage over us, is the only way to convince the people who actually have the power to change the situation.
i don't think there is a better argument for prior art than that mother nature made it. but simply finding a gene in a fruit fly or an aneorbic bacterium is not ground to patent anything. and certainly simply finding a gene and elucidating its behavior in the human body is not grounds either. grounds for a nobel prize, but not grounds for exclusivity
obviously, not according to law, but obviously according to simple common sense
now, if in some future decade, scientists make a genetic sequence that has no similarity to anything in mother nature anywhere that is useful, i'd say they can patent that.... i said NO similiarity. it's not like you can change one base pair and claim you've done something novel right?
but patenting what already exists? is there no better example of greed undermining common sense? is there no greater absurdity in the relentless march of intellectual property law into insanity and evil in the name of the almighty buck?
ip law is important for rewarding creators and innovators. not researchers of what already exists. the reward for them is scientific, altruistic, academic, and intellectual. it's even rewarding financially, but not in the framework of patents
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Honestly, if you take this opinion further, you can see that all patents are bad -- when it comes to the general populace. Patents are a post-market solution to create scarcity of a supply of something. Scarcity is needed to increase the price per the supply/demand curve. By artificially making an item scarce, a higher demand will mean a higher price. Patents are uncompetitive, though, the absolute sole reason why certain monopolies exist.
Some will say that inventors won't invent without patents, but this is untrue if you look at the vast number of modern inventions that we use every day that have 10,000 parts that have expired patents and maybe 10-20 that are still patented. Look at cell phones -- each phone has some obscure patent pending, but the vast majority of phones are fairly identical, and yet there is still a HUGE market for phones. Why do inventors keep creating new phones if the majority of their parts are unprotected?
Some will say that drugs won't get invented, but if you look at the initial medical treatment market, we had doctors who actually wanted to help people by creating new drugs and allowing them to be manufacturered by others regardless of who invented it. Consider this: if you knew of 3 companies making the same new drug, who would you trust more? The company who spent years in clinical trials, showing you that their ingredients is safe, or the 2 companies who attempted to copy said drug through reverse engineering it -- possibly incorporating something unsafe? The same is true with any "invention" that isn't patented -- you decide what product you need based on the cost and the safety. Sometimes the less expensive product is less safe or less effective, something that isn't the case.
Gene patents are also ridiculous -- why should an artificial State-enforced monopoly be placed on something that obviously can be utilized better by a market of competitors. If you want to be cautious about your competition "stealing" your research, just start your own clinics that don't share their research with the open market. Call it DRM of genetic research -- don't share it with others, and the chance that they'll steal it is slim. For most companies, it would be more advantageous for them to purchase the information outright than try to "steal" it through corporate espionage. They can also work to develop their own solutions if they realize that you found a solution -- but that development will cost money and time, of course. Still, it would seem to be better for the public and all the various markets to have a competitive market for genetic research rather than a monopolistic one that keeps only a few companies in the top tier and the rest out of the business.
Genes are usually discovered, not invented. Most genetic treatment involves finding out what a gene is, how it works, and how it goes wrong. That's hardly a creative invention, is it?
Meta will eat itself
I'm sure more money would go into development.
Or into advertisements of people screaming randomly assembled letters off of mountaintops while sitting in bathtubs. Your call.
My question is simply, how do you ensure that forcing parts of research to be open to the public won't prevent companies from dumping money into that research?
Because it didn't? As it was pointed out, countries where these things aren't patentable already have better genetic tests than the US does. This isn't some thought experiment, the proof is in the other parts of the world that have been making this work for years. The only reason that it would fail here would be petulant megacorps refusing to do any work at all if the government won't prevent people from competing against them, and once they've burned through their billions paying their executive officers while stalling development and taking out full page newspaper ads crying about how people are going to die because of that decision, they'd be replaced by companies that were willing to work despite competition.
Why does anyone? Why do Slashdot posters get all political trying to push their ideologies on other people?
People are, by nature, "political animals" as Aristotle suggested 2300 years ago.
-l
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That's nice. If I can find someone else who graduated from Harvard Medical School who disagrees with him on any given point, will that make the Universe implode in a logical paradox, since they've come up with some sort of way to make all of their graduates completely infallible?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Heinlein and Card attacked politics and ethics, which is perfectly within their see as writers.
Crichton attacked science for political reasons. Politics and Science are not the same thing, and I pretty much find it unacceptable for anyone to attack science, not because they have some concrete reason to believe that a mistake is being made, but simply because they don't care for the truth.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
The sad fact that he is slowly being ostrasized for his differing viewpoint a black eye on the science community.
Yeah, yeah, and it's real black eye on the scientific community that they aren't giving creationists and flat earthers a fair shake either.
Crichton's argument relied entirely on already disputed or disproven data, and furthermore he made wild, libelous accusations about the professional and ethical motives of climate scientists. Why exactly should anyone take seriously the arguments of a man who didn't do his research and calls you a member of a global conspiracy to hide "the truth?"
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
No, but it would lend him a bit more credibility then if he were just some fiction writer.
Yeah, I know, it's crazy. It's almost as if someone's opinions in disparate subjects might be of different legitimacy! This is just like those stupid professors when I was in school... when I wrote a thoroughly researched paper that presented a clear and accurate picture of something, I'd get a good grade -- but then when I wrote a poorly researched paper that ignored major sources and was mostly a personal diatribe, I'd get a bad grade!
Let's have a little consistency, people.
I am the man with no sig!
Uh, yes - Crichton has a medical degree background, so he is to be considered versed in subjects relating to that.
He is not a climatologist.
Why is that hard to understand? You'd trust a mechanic to talk about cars but if he says that vaccines don't work - why should you believe him?
Moo.
>Scientists should always question
Have you ever seen a paper come back with comments from the referees?
>The sad fact that he is slowly being ostrasized for his differing viewpoint a black eye on the science community
Notice how the conclusions of climatologists are data-driven? Under a much more environmentalist US administration, they were still coming up with "we don't know yet but we know this is possible". With active hostility from funding sources, but with more field data, the state of the field now lets them say "very likely" there's human-caused climate change.
We keep hearing that there's some kind of groupthink among climatologists. It would be a logical fallacy to point out that we keep hearing it because self-interested people are using endless repetition as a propaganda technique: it might still be true. But a single logical thought demolishes the idea:
What kind of "groupthink" is it that tells you they don't know whether it will be 1.4 or 5.8 degrees C of increase, tells you the probability that they're wrong about human causation, and argues in public about why Greenland is melting faster than they had predicted?
Well, yes.
It seems that someone's opinions on $foo may be ignorant and sensationalist while their opinions on $bar may be isightful and informed. Imagine that!
Considering that he is also an M.D., one might expect that he has more knowledge of the medical world than he has of climate change. Also, did you read both pieces, or at least parts of the global warming piece? I know that this is slashdot, but could be a slight qualitative difference between:
* Global warming has been manufactured by an environmentalist scientific cabal, thus is wrong
and
* Gene patents have demonstrably hurt average everyday people and are thus wrong.
Just checking.
You can find more quotes from him (including audio, when appropriate) Here: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton
Chrichton's main point is one I have also argued: Environmental science has been invaded by politicians and people with a specific political agenda to push, and that has colored and damaged almost all scientific study in that field since then. It as gotten so bad that "consensus" (something antithetical to the scientific method) is now being pushed as a reason why we should all believe that man and man alone is responsible for Global warming!
This is not science, it is politics. I, like Chrichton, am not interested in someone's political agenda when science is involved. I was science for science' sake. I realize that it isn't always possible, but it is something we should strive for. Chrichton merely pushes this, and as "nerds" we should be behind him on this point.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Environmentalism got DDT banned. DDT is the best defense against Malaria. Malaria kills how many people a year again? Just because you don't like the truth of the matter is no reason to ignore it. Well, unless you like being petty.
Scientific concensus does not mean truth. However, when a layperson who doesn't understand the issue needs to, it is by far their best bet to go with where the overwhelming majority of scientific viewpoints lie. Otherwise, you'd have us invest in alchemy companies instead of gold mines to produce gold. You'd have us try to get a spacecraft to Mars with magic instead of physics. You'd have the people looking through telescopes funded only to get accurate positions for astrologers. You'd replace hospital neurology departments with phrenology departments. You'd dump clinical trials for shamanism. The big-bang would be written out of scientific texts in favor of an Earth-centric universe. You might fund research on ways to better "dephlogisticate" air, or to delve deeper into the properties of the luminiferous ether.
If you're not well studied in the field, you're much less qualified to make judgements on the subject than those who are. And if the overwhelming majority of those who are tell you X, your best bet is definitely to go with X. Yes, there are always exceptions, where a very minority view turns out to be right after all. But those are exceptions. It's a bad bet to wager on them.
When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop.
This problem is inherent in the study of climate, because the scientific method is only really useful if you can devise an experiment to test your hypothesis. Obviously we can't actually do that with the climate because if the experiment fails we're all dead (and we don't have a spare planet to act as the control anyway), so relying on educated guesses by the scientists (in the form of simulations, statistical studies, etc.) is all we can do. Now, since most scientists (i.e., the ones actually qualified to study climate who aren't being paid by the oil industry) have come to a consensus, we really have no choice but to believe them.
Besides, hasn't even the oil industry admitted that it believes climate change is occurring (and is only arguing about what caused it)? If that's the case, then what we all need to realize is that it doesn't matter why it's happening, because it would suck for humanity regardless.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Bullshit. The world has plenty of food (even if it were grown organically), it's just not distributed correctly.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Finally, I'm not an atheist and I'm not particularly urban (though I unfortunately live in a crowded city for the time being). In case you hadn't noticed, a lot of religious groups are getting into environmentalism. Actually, this has been going on for quite a long time, especially with deeply religious individuals in various environmental groups, but this sort of thing gets next to no coverage in the media. Nutballs like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are considered the "Christians" even though they are nothing more than fringe lunatics who think they have a direct line to God.
I feel like death on a soda cracker.
...or (and this one will sound really crazy to politically polarized Americans) just maybe it's possible for people to have a combination of opinions that don't line up with the dogma of either the left or the right wing.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Not only that, but in my opinion politics were never designed to be a specialized field full of aristocrats. Politics, is, by its very nature the business of the people in a democracy. The press gives these people the magnitude they use in expressing their views, don't blame them for having one. Everyone earns their right to an opinion by being a citizen of this nation. If you don't like that, maybe you should try a communist country where the only people who get to have political views are those that are authorized to have them.
I'm so sick of the "what do they know?" argument. What does anyone know? Anyone who follows the news knows that politicians hardly know the subject matter of the bills they vote on and they are the ones that are voting. If a celebrity can come on record with a lot of media attention and shine light onto a subject such as this one, which is, honestly, worthy of attention, and garner popular support, perhaps the politicians responsible for addressing these issues will take a second look at them before throwing them in the circular file.
Politicians often don't even read the bills they vote on. Just because someone isn't a full-time politician doesn't mean he knows nothing. In fact, it's probably the opposite.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Yeah, that worked out so well for the flat-earth types. The problem is that human beings have difficulty with uncertainty. It's 2007 and we want our answers, dammit! We want to know The Truth (whether or not we can handle The Truth is another issue). People would rather know The World Is Going To End than have to wonder about it (check any history book and most religions for that matter). The problem is that we don't have all of the answers. Some we won't know for a few years, some we won't know in our lifetimes, and some we may not know ever. The problem is that in order to fulfill popular demand, Big Science is marketing things like consensus (not to mention some pretty half-baked research) as The Truth. And if The "Truth" happens to coincide with certain political interests... you generate some pretty impressive hot air (rimshot, please). Most of Science has sold out, and to every side of every debate. It's almost impossible to know who to trust
I don't know if the Global Warming crowd is right. The problem is that they don't have The Truth yet (verifiable, repeatable experiments that generate verifiable predictions), and they're not only screaming at the top of their lungs that they do, they're visciously attacking anyone who disagrees with them. And that, my friend, is where they cross over from being the heirs of the Age of Enlightenment to the heirs of The Spanish Inquisition. The main difference being that they generally draw the line at character assasination these days.
The bottom line is that people need to learn to be ok with not knowing what we don't know. We need to be open to possibilities without the need to draw unwarranted conclusions - basically maintain the classical "liberal" mindset (before the word "liberal" became tainted with politics). We needs to discourage other from the siren song of clinging to certainties that might not be real. And we need to be respectful to those who have the strength to disagree with the status quo and strike out in new directions.
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You seem to have forgotten something in this discussion over science & politics.
... well, Gore, and every other idiot celebrity who is simultaneously NOT a scientist, and yet an expert on Global Warming.
... so attacking Global Warming goes right out the window. Which is great news for socialists, they've never been fans of open, honest, intelligent debate.
Global warming is neither!!! Global Warming is a religion: it is taken on faith, it has its own commandments, it has its judgement day, and its savior (heaven help us) in the personage of
And you're not allowed to attack religions
Global Warming is a religion. As soon as you realize this, it all makes much more sense. Kinda.
Global warming is neither science, nor politics. It is a religion.
One: Michael Chrichton is not exactly a lay person. He is a certified MD, and a medical scientist. He does not currently practice, but he IS a scientist, and more than capable of studying the data on his own and coming up with a trustworthy conclusion, or to make comments on what he perceives as misconduct in the scientific community. ...being a scientists is worth about as much as shit unless the area is one you've studied. This is especially true for areas that are rapidly changing. For example a genetics biologist 15 years ago would be doing things a lot differently than one today, hell even microarray which are damn popular didn't exist then I believe. In complex topics "studying data" is worthless unless you're a genius and have months to devote to the issue to understand everything involved.
And that not even including statistics or data analysis which most "scientists" are incompetent at unless it's a really cookie cutter method. That's why you have groups working together with a statistician being part of that group if the methods used aren't generic. I mean there are articles prominently published in famous journals (with millions of government money behind the studies) whose stats can be decimated by a first year stats master's student.
As I stated, consensus in the scientific community is bad, especially when not all the data is there.
Oh? Then christ, we need to get rid of all science or make a lot more people scientists as a lot of it has a consensus. I mean god forbid scientists believe in that evil evolution, I mean we need to lobotomize some so they stop believing in it.
Again, Science must be independently verifiable.
Yes, by other scientists in the field. A consensus means that given available data the vast majority of those scientists agree with the results. This usually involves multiple independent studies that arrive at the same conclusion and a lack of visible flaws in those studies. This may change with time and details usually are argued over however at any given time that's the best we have. There is always the potential that they're wrong but working under that assumption is idiotic as we'd never move forward, medicine would not have advanced in the past century at all with that sort of mindset (mostly we had no clue what we were doing).
Currently, the concept of "Solely Man-Made Global Warming" is not independently verifiable!
The existence of a consensus among scientists indicates that they agree and have verified it.
We simply want All the data available, and have it put to a totally open, and independently verifiable test. Are you aware that Michael Mann, the scientist that came up with the famous "Hockey Stick" graph, has YET to release his data and methods for peer review?
You apparently aren't a scientist as it's very common for the data to not be released. Only with the internet is that changing.
What kind of science is that? No review? Community consensus without discussion? THIS IS NOT SCIENCE, IT IS POLITICS. Clear and simple.
They review what is available, normally independent verification involves gathering NEW data or independently gathering the same sort of data then repeating the previous results. Using the same data is in many ways bad science as you're not supposed to assume the data is correct or unbiased