Philip Ball: There’s virtue in that picture [of the genome as a ‘highly sensitive organ of the cell’], but I think it points to a wider consideration: that the best narratives and metaphors for thinking about how life works come not from our technologies (machines, computers) but from life itself. … The ‘organic technology’ of language, where meaning arises through context and cannot be atomised into component parts, is a constantly useful analogy. Life must be its own metaphor. And shouldn’t we have seen that all along? For what, after all, is extraordinary – and challenging to scientific des... tinyroofnail.micro.blog

@tinyroofnail “Life must be its own metaphor.” Amen! Ball is really excellent—I just encountered his work and I’ve been learning a ton.

@tinyroofnail That makes sense. I spent some time looking at genomics and realized quickly that, although you can think of it as programming, the programs have no requirement that a single mind can understand them, nor that the actions of the program be clear and maintainable. On the contrary, the forces that construct those programs favor crazy resilience, redundancy, testing in the wildest circumstances. I think it's no coincidence that viruses, the software most popularly named after biology, are specifically things we are terrible at controlling.

@mjkaul He’s new to me but that was quite thoughtful and refreshing

@cliffordbeshers @tinyroofnail I spent four years of focused study in bioinformatics and came to much the same conclusion. Imagine trying to decipher a ball of spaghetti code whose version 1.0 was released 4 billion years ago and you begin to understand what the field is trying to accomplish!

@fgtech So true. Impossible to approach with too much humility. Also reminds me of something a surgeon friend once said in a talk. He went down a rabbit hole that ended with “4 billion years of evolution have not prepared your pancreas for a box of crispy cream donuts.” 🤓

@tinyroofnail HAHAHA, indeed! Also: there really should be a pancreas emoji. Why do ♥️ and 🧠 get all of the internal organ attention?

@fgtech Yes!! In keeping with Hebrew literature, perhaps a kidney emoji as well 😆

@tinyroofnail "he that searcheth the reins and hearts." For a long time I either misread "reins" as "veins" or thought it was a typo. But reins=kidneys, I learned eventually, as in "renal."

@tinyroofnail @fgtech and a spleen? as in, venting it? seems like that emoji would get a lot of use...

@tinyroofnail @JohnBrady Thank you for leading me to that connection! Yes, absolutely, by the wisdom of the ancients, we need an EMOTicon for kidneys as the seat of emotion.

@dwalbert Yes. Perhaps a spleen emoticon would be fitting as the new app icon for Xitter.

@fgtech @JohnBrady @dwalbert Apparently the Hmong have a special place for liver. Ua siab ntev means “to act with a long liver, that is, a spirit or attitude of long suffering, patient endurance of wrongs or difficulties.” Illnesses like nyuab siab (difficult liver) or tu siab (broken liver) result in confusion, worry, loss of sleep, grief, loneliness, guilt, insecurity.