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Friday, October 9th, 2020

This Year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry Honors a Revolution

Author:     Walter Isaacson
Source:     The New York Times
Publication Date:     Oct. 7, 2020
 Link: This Year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry Honors a Revolution
Stephan:   These two women scientists, to their great credit, the first two-woman team to ever win a Nobel Prize have opened a door, but to what is not clear. On the one hand, it could bring great wellness if made equally available to all as needed. On the other hand, a dark path could be taken. If only the uber-rich get control of it, it could result in the creation of a new species of human, Homo Superior. I have written about this in several papers (see SR archive). That would create a world with two kinds of humans, and that is a very dark path indeed.
Emmanuelle Charpentier, left, and Jennifer Doudna may have made the most important biological advance since the discovery of the structure of DNA. Credit:Miguel Riopa/Agence France-Presse/Getty

When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled “The Double Helix” on her bed.She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama, filled with colorful characters, about ambition and competition in the pursuit of nature’s wonders. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would.

She would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, later told her was the most important biological advance since he and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA. She worked with a brilliant Parisian biologist named Emmanuelle Charpentier to turn a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the […]

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1 Comment

  1. Sam Crespi on Friday, October 9, 2020 at 9:06 am

    ‘In the balance’ seems to always be the effects of with these discoveries. And, of course, that what drives future change. Here, the irony seems to be that none of this will matter unless climate change is harnessed. It is inspiring to see the gradual change in the scientific community attitude toward women.