The Mail

I was thrilled to see Michael Specter write that “the central project of biology has been the effort to understand how the shifting arrangement of four compounds—adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine—determines the ways in which humans differ from each other and from everything else alive” (“The Gene Hackers,” November 16th). Though the article focussed on the potential medical and ethical implications of CRISPR gene editing, it is important to recognize that science exists not just to vanquish disease and invent technology but also to preserve our innate childlike wonder about how things work. To this end, many labs, including mine, seek to understand how genomes evolve to generate biological diversity. Historically, scientists have laboriously sought answers in just a few species amenable to experimental manipulation. CRISPR now simplifies experimental investigation of evolutionary questions in a variety of species. Charles Darwin wrote to Thomas Henry Huxley, in 1859, “You have most cleverly hit on one point, which has greatly troubled me . . . what the devil determines each particular variation? What makes a tuft of feathers come on a Cock’s head; or moss on a moss-rose?” Thanks in large part to CRISPR, we will soon find out.