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Is Technology Unnatural?

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Is Technology Unnatural? BOOKS & ARTS NATURE|Vol 450|29 November 2007 were in top scientific institutions: extreme mena chromosomes end in a series of repeated a fundamentally important process, but telom- dedication and long working hours, with no runs of cytosine bases that varied in length. erase continued to receive scant attention until supporting hierarchies — what Brady calls a Although this was the first molecular insight 1994–95, when it was shown to be aberrantly “rat lab”. Fellow scientists became her family into the structure of chromosome ends, it was activated in most human cancers. substitutes and friends, and there she met her not seen as important by the community, The biography succeeds in capturing Black- future husband, John Sedat. which is surprising in view of its implications burn’s vision, which has encouraged her to Blackburn’s DNA-sequencing skills were for for chromosome replication and transmission pursue unbeaten tracks to make discoveries her the key to discovery, and she took them to of genetic information. Blackburn blames the that today hold therapeutic promise for both Joe Gall’s lab in Yale after a short break to climb perception of Tetrahymena as a “freak organ- cancer and ageing. ■ to Mount Everest’s base camp with Sedat. In ism”. But it also fell outside what was then Maria A. Blasco is head of the Telomeres and Gall’s lab were some of the future principals of mainstream molecular biology. The story Telomerase Group in the Molecular Oncology the telomere field — Ginger Zakian, Mary-Lou repeated itself when she, together with Carol Program at the Spanish National Cancer Centre Pardue and, later, Tom Cech. It was there that Greider, discovered telomerase in 1985. By (CNIO), Melchor Fernández Almagro 3, 28029 Blackburn discovered in 1976 that Tetrahy- then it was clear that telomere replication was Madrid, Spain. a greater state of perfection, as Roger Bacon believed of alchemical gold. Is technology unnatural? The emphasis in The Artificial and the Natu- ral is historical, ranging from Hippocrates to The Artificial and the Natural: An Evolving the metals generated in the alchemist’s labora- nylon. These motley essays are full of wonders Polarity tory. The equivalent word in ancient Greece and insights, but are ultimately frustrating in edited by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent was technē, the root of ‘technology’ of course, their microcosmic way. There is no real syn- and William R. Newman but in itself a term that embraced subtle shades thesis on offer, no vision of how attitudes have MIT Press: 2007. 331pp. $40 of meaning, examined here in ancient medi- evolved and fragmented. There are too many cine by Heinrich von Staden and in mechanics conspicuous absences (Leonardo da Vinci for Philip Ball by Francis Wolff. one) for the book to represent an overview. The topic of this book — how boundaries are The critical issue was how this ‘art’ was It would have been nice to see some analy- drawn between the natural and the synthetic — related to ‘nature’, roughly identified with what sis of changing ideas about experimentation, has received too little serious attention, both in Aristotle called physis. Can art produce things the adoption of which was surely hindered by science and in society. Chemists are justifiably Aristotle’s doubts that ‘art’ (and thus labora- touchy about descriptions of commercial prod- tory manipulation) was capable of illuminat- ucts as ‘chemical-free’, but the usual response, ing nature. Prejudices about experiments often which is to lament media or public ignorance, went further: even in the Renaissance, one was fails to recognize the complex history and soci- free to disregard their results if they conflicted ology that lies behind preconceptions about with a priori ‘truths’ gleaned from nature, rather chemical artefacts. The issue is much broader, as Pythagoras advocated studying music by however, touching on areas ranging from stem- “setting aside the judgement of the ears”. And it cell therapy and assisted conception to biomi- would have been fascinating to see how these metic engineering, synthetic biology, machine issues were discussed in other cultures, particu- intelligence and ecosystem management. larly in technologically precocious China. And it is not an issue for the sciences alone. But most important, the discussion sorely Arguably, the distinction between nature and lacks a contemporary perspective, except for artifice is equally fraught in what we now call Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent’s chapter on the fine arts — where again it tends to be side- plastics and biomimetics. This debate is no stepped. Some modern artists address the mat- historical curiosity, but urgently needs airing ter head on with their interventions in nature today. Legislation on trans-species embryology, — for example, the artificial rainbows of Andy reproductive technology, genome engineering Goldsworthy — but much popular art criti- and environmental protection is being drawn cism now imposes a contemporary view, even up, based on what sometimes seems to be lit- LIBRARY BRIDGEMAN ART MONTPELLIER, FRANCE/GIRAUDON/THE MUSEE FABRE, on the old masters. Through this lens, Renais- tle more than a handful of received wisdoms sance writer Giorgio Vasari’s astonishment that Oil painting by Jan van Huysum (1682–1749): (some of them scriptural) moderated by con- Leonardo’s painted dewdrops “looked more does art imitate nature, or improve on it? ventional risk analysis. There is, with the pos- convincing than the real thing” seems a little sible exception of discussions on biodiversity, childish, as though he has missed the point of identical to those in nature, or only superficial almost no conceptual framework to act as a art. No one today believes that the artist’s job imitations of them? (The latter belief left Plato support and guide. is to mimic nature as accurately as possible. rather dismissive of the visual arts.) Does art All too often, what is considered ‘natural’ Perhaps with good reason, but it is left to art operate using the same principles as nature, or assumes an absurdly idealized view of nature historians to point out that there is nothing does it violate them? Alchemy was commonly that owes more to the delusions of Rousseau’s absolute about this view. deemed to work simply by speeding up natu- romanticism than to any historically informed At the heart of the matter is the fact that ‘art’ ral processes: metals ripened into gold sooner perspective. By revealing how sophisticated, has not always meant what it does today. Until in the crucible than they did in the ground, and yet how transitory, the distinctions have the late Enlightenment, it simply referred to and (al)chemical medicines accelerated natu- been in the past, this book is an appealingly anything human-made, whether a sculpture or ral healing. And although some considered erudite invitation to begin the conversation. ■ an engine. The panoply of mutated creatures ‘artificial’ things to be inferior to their ‘natu- Philip Ball is a consultant editor for Nature. described in Francis Bacon’s The New Atlantis ral’ equivalents, it was also widely held that His most recent book is The Devil’s Doctor (1627) were the products of ‘art’, and so were art could exceed nature, bringing objects to (Heinemann/FSG, 2006). 614.
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