From The Gene Page 234:
It is the impulse of science to try to understand nature, and the impulse of technology to try to manipulate it. Recombinant DNA had pushed genetics from the realm of sciece into the realm of technology. Genes were not abstractions anymore. They could be liberated from the genomes of organisms where they had been trapped for millennia, shuttled between species, amplified, purified, extended, shortened, altered, remixed, mutated, mixed, matched, cut, pasted, edited; they were infintely malleable to human intervention. Genes were no longer just the subjects of study, but the instruments of study. There is an illuminated moment in the development of a child when she grasps the recursiveness of language: just as thoughts can be used to generate words, she realizes, words can be used to generate thoughts. Recombinant DNA had made the language of genetics recursive. Biologists had spent decades trying to interrogate the nature of the gene -- but now it was the gene that could be used to interrogate biology. We had graduated, in short, from thinking about genes, to thinking in genes.
翻譯：
科學(xué)的出發(fā)點(diǎn)是了解自然芽丹，而科技的出發(fā)點(diǎn)是掌控自然。重組DNA的實(shí)現(xiàn)，使遺傳學(xué)從一門科學(xué)變成了一項(xiàng)科技。基因已經(jīng)不再是抽象概念闭翩，不再只是千萬年來禁錮在基因組中的一部分，相反，基因已經(jīng)能從基因組中提取出來陷遮，在物種間轉(zhuǎn)移，并進(jìn)行復(fù)制垦江、提純帽馋、擴(kuò)充、縮減比吭、修改绽族、重排、變異梗逮、混合项秉、配對、剪切慷彤、貼合娄蔼、編輯怖喻。在人類手上，它們呈現(xiàn)出無限可能岁诉。至此锚沸，基因已經(jīng)不只是研究的課題，而變成了研究的工具涕癣。就好像小孩在長大的過程中會恍然大悟哗蜈，明白語言是雙向的，即思想可以產(chǎn)生話語坠韩，而話語也能產(chǎn)生思想距潘。重組DNA技術(shù)的出現(xiàn)，讓遺傳學(xué)的語言（基因）也變成了雙向的只搁。生物學(xué)家耗時(shí)幾十年音比，想要探尋基因的本質(zhì)--而現(xiàn)在可以利用基因反過來探尋生物學(xué)本質(zhì)。簡言之氢惋，我們已經(jīng)邁上新起點(diǎn)洞翩，基因從“問題”變成了“思路”。
From The Gene Page 244:
It was an inverted fable: an academic Goliath versus a pharmaceutical David, one lumbering, powerful, handicapped by size, the other nimble, quick, adept at dancing around rules.
翻譯：
這簡直就是巨人和羊倌故事的翻版嘛：學(xué)術(shù)界的巨人單挑制藥界小個(gè)子焰望，一個(gè)孔武有力骚亿，五大三粗，可是反應(yīng)遲鈍熊赖，另一個(gè)機(jī)敏靈活来屠，凌波微步，而且擅長使巧勁兒秫舌。
