Should we have anticipated anything other than concordance on either side of two oceans, as we picked over cases of ethical dilemmas in 'everyday' and 'big' science. Perhaps not but it was exciting to see our esteemed colleague, Dan Farrell, pump his fist when he heard students in Madras and Columbus independently reach the same conclusion about the set of moral values that were at stake in the cases. Dan had a baptism by fire as he simultaneously debuted in video conferencing and PowerPoint, not bad for someone who claims to be a dinosaur. Dan also claims not to lecture- but he did a bit as he gave us a crash course in philosophy- were we realists or non-realists. Then we launched in and it was interesting- very. So yes even Dan's dynamic style can work in a video conference. We are only sorry that technology did let us down as Hyderabad had internet issues and could not be 'present'. But we will all be able to watch the archive.
So what did we discuss at lunch. Were any differences revealed that had a cultural basis? In the Hwang case, Dan had asked us to think only about one issue- was it OK for Hwang, the lab boss, to ask his female trainees to donate eggs for cloning experiments? Everyone thought no, absolutely not. But in Madras the idea that this was also a breach of etiquette came up. We all agreed that this was an egregious use of power. But in Columbus we didn't think so much about it being an inappropriate male-female interaction. We then launched into whether we were optimists or pessimists about the speed of change for inclusion and equality of women and minorities in science. Things rapidly devolved/evolved into whether we were all prisoners of our own biology. Destined to promote our own kind and maintain the historical male to female status quo. To be continued....
And now to celebrity. It came up twice in the day. First, the idea of the celebrity effect was raised in relation to the fraud case involving Schon and his famous boss Batlogg. Did Schon's work avoid an initial scrutiny because of his association with Batlogg? Do prominent scientists have an aura that protects them and makes them believable?
Second, later that day I heard a genomics talk from Robert Strausberg who claims to be the only one on earth to have worked for both people who have had their personal genomes sequenced! These are of course Watson and Venter. And he, Strausberg, has had a dizzyingly successful career at the top level in public and private science. He is currently deputy director of the Venter Institute. So a private glimpse into the genomes of two celebrities, Venter and Watson. Once alleles corresponding to 'risk takers' were revealed (the finding made quite splash) Venter wanted to know if he had the specific allele, some disappointment- no he didn't. If you compare the two genomes Watson is not as good at metabolizing drugs as Venter. But the bottom line is that for a healthy person, having their personal genome sequence really doesn't reveal that much, at least currently. Strausberg emphasized the need for bioinformatics- to make sense of all this data. So for those of you who are starting your careers in science- take note! Meanwhile the Sorcerer has set sail on a second expedition with Venter at the helm. Off to do some more metagenomics and combine his love of science and sailing- life's good!!!!
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