Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
tieth century. I have no doubt that the goals and the means of the capi-
talist enterprise and character will inflect, perhaps radically, what used
to be known as the scientific ethic. My goal is to note a watershed change
and to urge us to reflect on it.
Although hype and cant have dominated the coverage of the emer-
gence of genome mapping, what we
have
learned from the first decade
or so is neither the secrets of the holy grail of life, nor the meaning of
the code of codes, nor that genetics inevitably brings with it a new eugen-
ics.
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Rather, we have learned that all living beings—at the level of the
genetic code—are materially the same, and that the very techniques that
were developed to make this profound discovery enable, even oblige,
further intervention into that materiality. François Jacob, the French
Nobel Prize winner, frames these two points in simple, elegant prose.
First, Jacob notes that “all living beings, from the most humble to the
most complex, are related. The relationship is closer than we ever
thought.”
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Second, he adds that “genetic engineering brought about a
total change in the biological landscape as well as in the means of inves-
tigating it. Where it had been possible only to observe the surface of
phenomena, it now became feasible to intervene in the heart of things.”
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Of course, Jacob's tropes—“landscape” and “the heart of things”—are
archaic. As he is an old European, to use a phrase from Habermas, we
can be tolerant of Jacob's failing figurations; however, as Jacob is an old
and wise European, we should be attentive to what he sees. But we
should also be alert to the fact that our practices may well be outrun-
ning our core metaphors.
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In that case, inventiveness in the cultural
sciences would have to be placed extremely high on an agenda of value
orientations.
Consolations
Let us return to
Civilization and Its Discontents
. Freud concluded his
topic in a clinical manner, simultaneously incisive and hesitant: “The
fateful question for the human species” is whether civilization can master
“the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction.” But any answer
to this question is unfortunately directly linked to the problem: “Men
have gained control over the forces of nature to such an extent that with
their help they would have no difficulty in exterminating one another to
