Synthetic Genomics and the Causal Role of Genes: What has been Shown and Why it Matters

摘要: Synthetic genomics, the synthesis of a whole viable genome self-replicating organism, has been mainly considered as momentous technical achievement. Yet creation bacterial cell from synthetic also considerable scientific significance, insofar it tackles crucial question genomic paradigm research: “Do chromosomes contain genetic material?” In this paper, we situate experiment in tradition research and explore conceptual consequences resulting empirical findings. We argue that technological understanding genomics is partial must be supplemented with discussion notion artificiality, depends on claim “the DNA software builds its own hardware”, which case if only contains entire repertoire an organism.