standard normal sequence of the entire human genome was of no help here,

nor would it be in any other case.

The second problem of the human genome sequencing project is that it also
claims that in knowing the molecular configuration of our genes, we know
everything that is worth knowing about us. It regards the gene as
determining the individual, and the individual as determining society. It
isolates an alteration in a so-called cancer gene as the cause of cancer,
whereas that alteration in the gene may in turn have been caused by
ingesting a pollutant, which in turn was produced by an industrial process,
which in turn was the inevitable consequence of investing money at 6
percent. Once again, the impoverished notion of causation that characterizes
modern biological ideology, a notion that confuses agents with causes,
drives us in particular directions to find solutions for our problems.
Why, then, do so many powerful, famous, successful, and extremely
intelligent scientists want to sequence the human genome? The answer is, in
part, that they are so completely devoted to the ideology of simple unitary
causes that they believe in the efficacy of the research and do not ask
themselves more complicated questions. But in part the answer is a rather
crass one. The participation in and the control of a multibillion-dollar, 30- or
50-year research project that will involve the everyday work of thousands of
technicians and lower-level scientists is an extraordinarily appealing
prospect for an ambitious biologist. Great careers will be made. Nobel
Prizes will be given. Honorary degrees will be offered. Important
professorships and huge laboratory facilities will be put at the disposal of
those who control this project and who succeed in producing thousands of
computer discs of human genome sequence. The realization that there are
fairly straightforward economic and status rewards awaiting those who take
part in the project has given rise to a powerful opposition to the project from
within biology itself, from others who are doing a different kind of science
and see their own careers and their own research threatened by the diversion
of money, energy, and public consciousness. Some farsighted biologists
have cautioned against the terrible public disillusionment that will follow
the completion of the human genome sequencing project. The public will
discover that despite the inflated claims of molecular biologists, people are
still dying of cancer, of heart disease, of stroke, that institutions are still