Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
made to matter to ordinary people in everything from law courts to hospitals
to family history websites, such as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (i.e.
embryo screening for potential health 'defects' prior to
in vitro
fertilisation).
Another measure of molecular biology's prominence is that it's inspired a
few successful Hollywood sci-fi films since the mid-1990s. Aside from the
well-known
Jurassic Park
trilogy, these include
Gattaca
(1997),
Code 46
(2003),
Aeon Flux
(2005) and
The Island
(2005). In different ways, these films invite
viewers to consider the ethical and practical implications of molecular biol-
ogy's analytical and technical prowess. The same can be said of novels like
Margaret Atwood's (2003)
Oryx and Crake
and the Michael Crichton topics
that inspired two Steven Spielberg blockbusters. They continue a long tra-
dition in which fictional genres and modes of representation seek to shape
public perceptions of scientists and the 'proper' place of science in society.
Molecularising identity
The words and deeds of molecular biologists, relayed and redescribed by
myriad intermediaries, are altering our existing understandings of self and
other. Their science is changing the socioeconomic context in which they
operate. How? First, they are focussing their, and our, attention on entities
and processes that appear to be nothing less than
definitional
of what it is to
be both an individual human being and a member of a unique mammalian
species. Because, to our way of thinking, we're at once natural and cultural
beings, knowing
what
we are biologically speaking necessarily impinges on
the question of
who
(we think) we are. Second, because sub-dermal entities
and processes are invisible to the non-expert observer, then we necessarily
rely on molecular biologists to, as it were, represent ourselves to ourselves.
To use Evelyn Fox Keller's (2000: 10) term, 'gene talk' that can ultimately
be traced back to research scientists is, these days, very hard to ignore when
it comes to answering the timeless questions 'who am I?' and 'to whom am
I similar, or related?' This conjugation of individual and group identity was
well expressed by a Harvard geneticist, Professor Walter Gilbert, reflecting
on the prospect of the fully sequenced human genome back in 1992: 'one
will', he said, 'be able to pull a CD out of one's pocket and say “Here is a
human being; it's me” ' (Gilbert, 1992: 96).
In
Chapter 2
, I argued that individual and group identities are cobbled
together over time as people are 'interpellated' by myriad discourses into
a variety of contingent 'subject-positions'. It's the colligation of these posi-
tions that defines, in ways that vary spatially and temporally, the apparently
autonomous and complete 'individuals' we typically consider ourselves to
be. Rather than simply providing a 'biological foundation' upon which the
house of socially constructed identities is made, we can consider human
biology, or more precisely, discourses about human biology, as contribu-
tory to the process of interpellation. In respect of 'gene talk', the American
anthropologist Paul Rabinow (1992) suggested that we may be entering a
