This week’s Time Magazine (December 25, 2000) has a lead article on ‘Gene Mapper’ Craig Venter, ‘the bad boy of science [who] jump-started a biological revolution.’

First, for racists: did you know that the percentage of human genome that is functionally identical in any two individuals is 99.9999% ?

And for religionists and humanists: ‘We think we’re superior beings, but we have the same number of genes as a plant’ (geneticist Mani Subramanian). ‘Mouse and human genomes are almost identical, with only a few hundred genes separating the two’ (Time writer Dick Thompson).

Third, for conformists: Venter was sent to Vietnam as a medical corpsman – ‘an experience that taught him indelible lessons about the fragility of human life and the colossal ineptitude of bureaucracies. Says Venter: “If you suffered fools, you died. I dealt with thousands of people dying because of stupid government policies”.’ Further: ‘When he heard about a computerized machine that used lasers to automatically identify the chemical letters in DNA, he went out and bought a prototype – even though his National Institutes of Health bosses wouldn’t pay for it.’ More: ‘He was increasinly unhappy within NIH, with its bureaucracy, limited funds and intramural sniping (Watson, Collins’ predecessor as head of the agency’s genome project, had derided Venter for his work on machines that “could be run by monkeys”).’

Rowland Croucher

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