Biotechnology and Creative Writing

Abstract

Biotechnology and creative writing are both ”life science”: one handles life forms, and the other expresses life manners. Biological ideas and terms have entered literature: ”organic form,” for instance, is an ideal for creative writing. Everything is a text. A literary text is made up of sounds, shapes, and senses: it is a verbal structure resulting from the selection and combination of its elements. Biotechnology uses the same basic modes of selection and combination. In gene cloning, it selects genes and combines genes by inserting certain genes into a genetic sequence. Both biotechnology and creative writing need judgment to cut apart and imagination to put together, just as recombinant DNA technology needs one category of enzymes to act as scissors and another category to act as glue. In cutting and gluing, both creative writers and biotechnologists must consider the problem of ”homogeneity or heterogeneity.” Both a literary text and a genetic text involve a coding process. A literary text is a linear sequence of words, which are signs with sounds and shapes functioning as signifiers and with senses as the signified. A genetic text is also a linear sequence with genetic substance signifying genetic content. The flow of genetic information involves the transcription of RNA for DNA and the translation of RNA into protein, just like the transcription of sounds for senses and the translation of sounds into shapes. So, a biotechnologist ”writes” or ”rewrites” a sequence of amino acids while a creative writer writes or rewrites a sequence of words. This writing or rewriting process involves, in fact, very complicated systems of systems. A literary text has its sound system based on phonemes, shape system based on graphemes, and sense system based on sememes, stylemes, ideologemes, etc. A genetic text has its various genomes with various combinations of amino acids, which contain codons, which contain nucleotides. The act of creating literary or genetic texts has never ceased and will never end. Man is a ”Second Deity,” a ceaseless creator like God. But creation always has its danger. Writers may produce literary works detrimental to society; biotechnologists may create genetic products harmful to the world. So, both biotechnology and creative writing should have the common end of ensuring a good end for all life in the cosmos.