title: Aesthetics in synthesis and synthetic biology.
abstract: Physicists frequently allow aesthetics to guide their science. Chemists sometimes do. Biologists rarely do. They have encountered too frequently the consequences of the Darwinian 'hack'. The biological parts delivered by Darwinian processes are rarely simple, efficient, or elegant solutions to the biological problems that they address. Nevertheless, as humans, we seek to find aesthetics within our activities. In general, however, it is hard to distinguish what we say is beautiful from what is, in reality, utilitarian.
authors.affiliation: Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, The Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology, Gainesville, FL 32601, United States. sebenner@ffame.org
authors.forename: Steven A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Benner
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry; D004954:Esthetics; D006801:Humans; D008958:Models, Molecular; D058615:Synthetic Biology / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D004247:DNA