Article ID: CBB001024012

A Functional ABC for Biotechnology and the Dissemination of Its Progeny (2011)

unapi

In this paper we present a functional analysis of biotechnology and identify the particular status that genetic engineering has relative to other biotechnological techniques such as domestication. The analysis builds on work by Dan Sperber and characterises biotechnology in primarily technical and biological functional terms as symbiotic interactions in which humans modify other organisms. We identify three main routes by which these interactions are established in biotechnology. We argue that two of these routes have in-built mechanisms for preventing an uncontrolled dissemination of the modified organisms, and that one has an in-built mechanism for promoting such dissemination. The three routes are available to traditional forms of biotechnology as to state-of-the-art genetic engineering. Drawing now on work by Alfred Nordmann on the uncanniness of modern technologies, we show that genetic engineering is set apart by the epistemic consequences of the microscopic size of its progeny: genetically modified organisms, when disseminating, do so beyond our perceptual and conceptual control. Existing strategies against unwanted dissemination of organisms modified in traditional biotechnology are therefore typically not adequate against possible unwanted dissemination of genetically modified organisms, giving this dissemination a status similar to that of untraceable natural disasters.

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Description Provides a functional analysis of biotechnology, relating the status of genetic engineering to other biotechnological techniques such as domestication.


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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001024012/

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Authors & Contributors
Otsuka, Yoshiki
Bruchez, Marcel
Lawson, Charles
Botelho, Alyssa
Wynne, Brian
Wink, Rüdiger
Concepts
Biotechnology
Genetic engineering
Biology
Genetically modified organisms
Agriculture
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
Places
United States
Japan
Europe
Institutions
Science for the People (SftP)
Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules (1975)
United States. Dept. of Agriculture
Human Genome Project
Harvard University
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