Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
gists understand how organisms work. 37 In other words, what both-
ers Brenner is the generality of the questions that are being posed and
answered.
A signifi cant proportion of the debate over hypothesis-free biol-
ogy has centered on the computer and its capabilities as an “induction
machine.” Allen in particular argues that discovery science amounts to
letting the computer “do our thinking for us”: “knowledge does not
arrive de novo from computer-assisted analysis . . . we should not give
[computers] credit for having the ideas in the fi rst place.” 38 Such views
suggest that much of what is at the root of the discomfort with discov-
ery science is the role of computers in reshaping biological practice and
knowledge production. Indeed, without the ability to process, reduce,
analyze, and store data using computers, hypothesis-free science would
be impossible. It was the introduction of the computer to biology that
enabled the shift from hypothesis-driven or deductive methods to in-
ductive methods within biology.
However, it is not merely the use of computers itself that is impor-
tant; rather, it is the use of the computer as a specifi c tool for the man-
agement and analysis of large quantities of data using statistical tech-
niques. 39 Biology in silico is not just a consequence of large data sets,
or of the availability of computers. Rather, it is a consequence of the
specifi c epistemologies, practices, and modalities of knowing that were
and are embedded in the transistors and chips of computing machines. 40
The discomfort with bioinformatics and hypothesis-free biology is due
to the specifi c ways of using the computer (general questions and statis-
tics) that I have described in this chapter.
The confl ict between hypothesis-free and hypothesis-driven biol-
ogy has a longer heritage in debates about the “data crisis.” As already
noted, since at least the beginnings of GenBank, there has been a persis-
tent concern that biology will soon be overwhelmed by data that it will
be unable to process or analyze. In 1988, before the HGP had gotten
under way in earnest, Charles DeLisi, one of its strongest advocates,
expressed this worry:
The development of methods for generating [sequence] informa-
tion has, however, far outstripped the development of methods
that would aid in its management and speed its assimilation. As
a result, we are witnessing enormous growth in data of a most
fundamental and important kind in biology, while at the same
time we lack the ability to assimilate these data at a rate com-
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