This book addresses the ethical and political questions flowing from the vastly increased possibilities to manipulate the genetic properties of organisms, including human beings. Due to the great complexity of the scientific fields involved, these questions are framed and answered mostly by scientific experts. But the new technological possibilities and social practices connected with genetic manipulation intrude into domains that for a long time have been the provenance of religious and secular worldviews and touch upon deep-seated convictions and emotions. Moreover they are strongly influenced by economic and political interests. As a consequence, questions of scientific truth and technical control are getting more and more mixed up with questions regarding values and interests. Against this background, this book starts from the premise that neither clinging to the idea of value-neutral, disinterested science, nor the complete abandonment of this idea in favour of postmodern relativism will be of much help here. Instead the different contributions to this book explore the idea of a ‘lingua democratica’ for the life sciences and sketch the contours of this notion by focusing on a broad range of conceptual and practical issues in the field of genomics.

A groundbreaking analysis of how the genomic revolution is transforming American society and creating new social divisions - some along racial lines - that promise to fundamentally shape American politics for years to come.The emergence of genomic science in the last quarter century has revolutionized medicine, the justice system, and our very understanding of who we are. We use genomics to determine guilt and exonerate the convicted; devise new medicines; test embryos; and discover our ethnic and national roots. Onemight think that, given these advances, most would favor the availability of genomic tools. Yet as Jennifer Hochschild explains in Genomic Politics , the uses of genomic science are both politically charged and hotly contested.The political divisions around genomics do not follow the usual left-right ideological divides that dominate most of American politics. Through four controversial innovations resulting from genomic science - genetically modified medicines that target African-Americans, who are demographically moresusceptible to heart disease; the use of DNA evidence in the criminal justice system; the current ancestry craze; and the use of genetic tests in prenatal exams - Hochschild reveals how the phenomenon is polarizing America in novel ways. Advocates of genomic science argue that these applicationswill make life better, but their opponents respond by pointing out the potential for misuse - from racial profiling to "selecting out" fetuses that gene tests show to have conditions like Down's Syndrome. Hochschild's central message is that the divide hinges on answers to two questions: Howsignificant are genetic factors in explaining human traits and behaviors? And what is the right balance between risk acceptance and risk avoidance for a society grappling with innovations arising from genomic science? A deeply researched and original analysis of the politics surrounding one of thesignal issues of our times, this is essential reading for anyone interested in how the genetics revolution is reshaping society.

"Genetic Politics explores the history of eugenics and the rise of contemporary genomics, identifying continuities and changes between the past and the present. The authors reject the two extreme positions that human genetics are either fatally corrupted by, or utterly immune from, eugenic influence. They argue that today's forms of genetic screening are far from equivalent to the eugenics of the past, but eugenics cannot simply be dismissed as bad science, or the product of totalitarian regimes, for its values and practices continue to shape genetics today."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

In the life sciences and beyond, new developments in science and technology and the creation of new social orders go hand in hand. In short, science and society are simultaneously and reciprocally coproduced and changed. Scientific research not only produces new knowledge and technological systems but also constitutes new forms of expertise and contributes to the emergence of new modes of living and new forms of exchange. These dynamic processes are tightly connected to significant redistributions of wealth and power, and they sometimes threaten and sometimes enhance democracy. Understanding these phenomena poses important intellectual and normative challenges: neither traditional social sciences nor prevailing modes of democratic governance have fully grappled with the deep and growing significance of knowledge-making in twenty-first century politics and markets. Building on new work in science and technology studies (STS), this book advances the systematic analysis of the coproduction of knowledge and power in contemporary societies. Using case studies in the new life sciences, supplemented with cases on informatics and other topics such as climate science, this book presents a theoretical framing of coproduction processes while also providing detailed empirical analyses and nuanced comparative work. Science and Democracy: Knowledge as Wealth and Power in the Biosciences and Beyond will be interesting for students of sociology, science & technology studies, history of science, genetics, political science, and public administration.

In the summer of 1991, population geneticists and evolutionary biologists proposed to archive human genetic diversity by collecting the genomes of "isolated indigenous populations." Their initiative, which became known as the Human Genome Diversity Project, generated early enthusiasm from those who believed it would enable huge advances in our understanding of human evolution. However, vocal criticism soon emerged. Physical anthropologists accused Project organizers of reimporting racist categories into science. Indigenous-rights leaders saw a "Vampire Project" that sought the blood of indigenous people but not their well-being. More than a decade later, the effort is barely off the ground. How did an initiative whose leaders included some of biology's most respected, socially conscious scientists become so stigmatized? How did these model citizen-scientists come to be viewed as potential racists, even vampires? This book argues that the long abeyance of the Diversity Project points to larger, fundamental questions about how to understand knowledge, democracy, and racism in an age when expert claims about genomes increasingly shape the possibilities for being human. Jenny Reardon demonstrates that far from being innocent tools for fighting racism, scientific ideas and practices embed consequential social and political decisions about who can define race, racism, and democracy, and for what ends. She calls for the adoption of novel conceptual tools that do not oppose science and power, truth and racist ideologies, but rather draw into focus their mutual constitution.

Cook-Deegan, a former director of the Biomedical Ethics Advisory Committee of the US Congress and an advisor to the National Center for Human Genome Research, gives a firsthand account of the struggle to launch the Human Genome Project. Using primary documents and interviews, Cook-Deegan explains scientific details, chronicles the origins of the project, covers the conflicts and partnerships between the organizations involved, and examines ethical, legal, and social issues of DNA research. Includes bandw photos. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR