The Jay DNA

Kevin Kelly’s 1994 book, Out of Control, The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World, is right on the money. (It’s also a free download.)

The machine age is over; the organic age has begun.

• The only organization capable of unprejudiced growth, or unguided learning, is a network.
• Biology always wins in any blending of organic and machine.
• We cannot import evolution and learning without exporting control.
• What humans can’t engineer, evolution can. (Yes! Yes! Yes!)

Organisms, not machines
My inquiry into informal learning has drawn me to something much larger: how biology can help organic organizations remain sustainable. I’m devouring material on ecology, genetics, renewal, evolution, sustainability, nurture, nature, and the likely dimensions of the survivors’ footprints.

This was running through my mind when I saw a story in Wired, 23AndMe Will Decode Your DNA for $1,000. Welcome to the Age of Genomics.

The Age of the Genome, Wired

April 2003 The Human Genome Project — a full map of our genetic code — is completed for $2.7 billion in 13 years.

October 2005 The first phase of the International HapMap Project, a catalog of genetic variations, is published.

May 2007 James Watson’s whole genome is sequenced at a cost of less than $1 million.

November 2007 23andMe opens for business, offering retail genotyping for $1,000.

Why not? This is my DNA sample. I dropped it in a Fedex collection box today. I’m really looking forward to exploring the results. I’ll keep you posted.

Help me think about organizational DNA and memes, heredity and environment, corporate nature & nurture.

New York Times: My Genome, Myself: Seeking Clues in DNA