Pharyngula::Old Brenner quotes always crack me up

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Friday, March 25, 2005

Old Brenner quotes always crack me up

PZ Myers • 3 Comments

Ha. A great, great quote (or perhaps, paraphrase) on the Helmintholog:

"There are two great problems left to science. One is development and the other is consciousness. The reason that neither has been solved is that the people working on them are stupid. But now we have cracked the genetic code, we are going to finish them. Francis [Crick] is going to take consciousness and I am going to take development. We will have them solved in ten years. Who wants to come along for the ride?"

That's Sidney Brenner. In 1963. He was infamous for this sort of cocky reductionist thing, but at least he has since repented.

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Comments:

#19726: Andrew Brown — 03/25 at 09:58 AM
I'm glad you laughed. It is a paraphrase rather than a direct quote, though.

There is an interesting piece to be written on the ten-year horizon. There must be lots of problems that have been ten years from their solution for most of the last fifty years.

#19737: — 03/25 at 12:19 PM
And if you think that's cocky, if I recall correctly one physicist said in 1922 that we were six months away from establishing a Theory of Everything.

#19809: Dr Pretorius — 03/25 at 03:58 PM
Funny thing is people are still saying that about consciousness. Nowadays it's the cognitive scientists, but the ten year forecast is pretty unchanged.

Sometimes the whole thing feels like the 'social security will fail very very soon' comments you hear from politicians.

Trackback: Los últimos dos problemas Tracked on: Evolucionarios (66.111.34.80) at 2005 03 25 20:24:52
Sydney Brenner and Francis Crick held a seminar [in Cambridge, 1963] for the eight brightest students of the year to persuade them to become molecular biologists. Brenner's pitch was this: "There are two great problems left to science. One is developm

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Friday, March 25, 2005

Old Brenner quotes always crack me up

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