We talk about molecular population and evolutionary GENETICS and GENOMICS. You know, the caliper measurement of a gene's evolvability in moles.
Subscribe to the evolgen RSS feedDr. Joan Bushwell (not her real name) has hurled some poo at the -omicists. You know, those people who attach -omics to everything and act like they've come up with a brand new research discipline. I imagine them making the "guitar player changing chords" face (go to 1:09 in this video) when they coin a new "ome".
As one last hurrah for omeomics, Doc Bushwell coined the meme-ome. That would be a collection of all the memes floating around the blogosphere. Or is it all memes everywhere? Who knows? But it is the perfect congruence of two terms that have worn out there welcome.
And systems biologists, don't think you're immune from the criticism. We all know you're just computer scientists who think they've invented physiology.
P.S. I posted this in the Philosophy of Science category because, well, I can.
Comments
And systems biologists, don't think you're immune from the criticism. We all know you're just computer scientists who think they've invented physiology.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way sometimes about systems biology...
Posted by: Amit | November 30, 2006 12:49 PM
Somebody needs to write up all the "-omics" topics into a book, so I can add it to my bibliome.
Posted by: SMC | November 30, 2006 2:16 PM
Oh, that's an excellent illustration! Another winceworthy term is chemogenomics, coined by some former colleagues. They were tumescent for days after coming up with that one.
Posted by: Doc Bushwell | December 1, 2006 7:59 AM
Actually, I think an AI guy named Doug Lenat (and possibly some random Discordian as well) gets credit for the word "memome". It does sound rather silly though.
Posted by: Brian X | December 1, 2006 12:32 PM
Well, at the risk of being a more than usually shameless blogwhore, I wrote an article earlier this year moaning about systems biology. Well, moaning about its overhyping, really. It's short, but you'll need a subscription...
Posted by: postblogger | December 2, 2006 3:48 PM
In 1994-5, when there were less than 100 bioinformatists in th world(really!), we have felt that bioinformatics, proteomics, transcriptomics etc were too much and felt it was only for self-serving ego and taking another piece of research fund.
In 1998, when I first had 'systems biology' seminar in UK, I thought, it was exactly what I was doing: bioinformatics.
I now think omics is useful in many places. If we object to omics, we should object to many words such as nano-xx, etc. We are in systems/commplexity era.
Posted by: Jong Bhak | December 25, 2006 10:15 AM