Genetic determinism is nowadays largely questioned and widely criticized. However, if we look at the history of biology in the last one hundred years, we realize that genetic determinism has always been controversial. Why, then, did it acquire such relevance in the past despite facing longstanding criticism? Through the analysis of some of the ambitious expectations of future scientific applications, this article explores the possibility that part of the historical success of genetic determinism lies in the powerful rhetorical strategies that have connected the germinal matter with alluring bio-technological visions. Indeed, in drawing on the recent perspectives of “expectation studies” in science and technology, it will be shown that there has been an interesting historical relationship between reductionist notions of the gene as a hereditary unit, coded information or functional DNA segment, and startling prophecies of what controlling such an entity might achieve. It will also be suggested that the well-known promissory nature of genomics is far older than the emergence of biotechnology in the 1970s. At least from the time of the bio-utopias predicted by J.B.S. Haldane and J. S. Huxley, the gene has often been surrounded by what I call the “rhetoric of futurity”: a promissory rhetoric that, despite momentous changes in the life sciences throughout the 20th century, has remained relatively consistent over time.
...More
Chapter
Morteza Gharib;
Francis C. Wells;
(2020)
Anticipating the Future: Leonardo’s Unpublished Anatomical and Mathematical Observations
(/isis/citation/CBB245679851/)
Book
Kilgore, De Witt Douglas;
(2003)
Astrofuturism: Science, Race, and Visions of Utopia in Space
(/isis/citation/CBB001032652/)
Article
Marcus Popplow;
(2021)
Technikgeschichte in Zukunftsdebatten. Zur Brückenfunktion historischer Technikzukünfte (History of Technology in Future Debates. On the bridging function of historical technology futures)
(/isis/citation/CBB926178874/)
Article
Davide Battisti;
(2019)
Genome editing: slipping down toward Eugenics?
(/isis/citation/CBB945724739/)
Thesis
Stickgold-Sarah, Jessie;
(2011)
The Textual Body: Genetics and Dystopia in American Fiction
(/isis/citation/CBB001562734/)
Article
Poole, Robert;
(2012)
The Challenge of the Spaceship: Arthur C. Clarke and the History of the Future, 1930--1970
(/isis/citation/CBB001211875/)
Book
Peter J. Bowler;
(2017)
A History of the Future: Prophets of Progress from H. G. Wells to Isaac Asimov
(/isis/citation/CBB074226848/)
Article
Clayton, Jay;
(2013)
The Ridicule of Time: Science Fiction, Bioethics, and the Posthuman
(/isis/citation/CBB001200682/)
Article
Michel Morange;
(2017)
Human Germline Editing: A Historical Perspective
(/isis/citation/CBB176490993/)
Book
Gavin Miller;
(2020)
Science Fiction and Psychology
(/isis/citation/CBB151529928/)
Chapter
Brandt, Christina;
Casser, Anja;
(2007)
Populärkultur und Wissenschaft: Science-Fiction und populäres Bild als Medien der Wissenschaftskommunikation
(/isis/citation/CBB001023696/)
Article
Brandt, Christina;
(2010)
Zeitschichten des Klons. Anmerkungen zu einer Begriffsgeschichte
(/isis/citation/CBB001021197/)
Book
Yi, Doogab;
(2015)
The Recombinant University: Genetic Engineering and the Emergence of Stanford Biotechnology
(/isis/citation/CBB001510017/)
Thesis
Elhefnawy, Nader;
(2006)
The Promise and the Peril: Science Fiction's Depiction of Technology
(/isis/citation/CBB001560992/)
Book
Watson, James D.;
Berry, Andrew;
(2003)
DNA: The Secret of Life
(/isis/citation/CBB000630773/)
Book
Hopwood, David A.;
(2007)
Streptomyces in Nature and Medicine: The Antibiotic Makers
(/isis/citation/CBB000930527/)
Book
Boris Groĭs;
(2018)
Russian cosmism
(/isis/citation/CBB764024749/)
Book
Javier Pérez-Jara;
Lino Camprubí;
(2022)
Science and Apocalypse in Bertrand Russell: A Cultural Sociology
(/isis/citation/CBB059801832/)
Book
Hashim Sarkis;
Barrio, Roi Salgueiro;
Gabriel Kozlowski;
(2019)
The world as an architectural project
(/isis/citation/CBB233843863/)
Article
Wendy Sims-Schouten;
Paul Weindling;
(2022)
“All emigrants are up to the physical, mental, and moral standards required”: A tale of two child rescue schemes
(/isis/citation/CBB223596464/)
Be the first to comment!