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microbiological and macrobiological components and processes. This recalled the
holistic approaches adopted in much of nineteenth-century plant, animal and human
biology. Conceptually, the central dogma was atomist and reductionist, assuming
not only that organisms could be decomposed into discrete structural and func-
tional units, but also that the microbiological components built macrobiological ones
from the bottom up. Conceptual alternatives to the central dogma research practices
focussed on whole biological systems and subsystems. Processes, pathways, feedbacks
and the like are the focus here. Paul Griffths and Karola Stotz (2006) explain what the
'post-genomic' understanding of human genes entails. Lenny Moss (2003), in his book
What genes can't do
, maps out a similar analytical terrain. For a primer on molecular
genetics, see
Introducing genetics
( Jones and van Loon, 2000).
9
There are three others that have been used widely and repeatedly over the past
15 years. The first is a
textual
metaphor, in which genes are referred to as 'the topic
of life' whose contents need to be translated before they can be read. For example,
in his well-known work of science communication, the British geneticist Steve Jones
(1993) opted for the title
The language of the genes
, implying that human biology can
be analogised to a discourse. Former HGP Director Francis Collins, likewise, calls his
book on personalised medicine
The language of life
(2010), while Walter Bodmer and
Robin McKie preferred
The topic of man
(1997). The second metaphor is
computational
:
genes are referred to as containing (or being) instructional code that programmes the
organism. The third metaphor is
architectural
: genes are referred to as containing (or
being) a 'blueprint' for the design of a whole organism rather as an architect who
designs a building in their mind (and on paper) before it can be erected in reality.
Clearly, the second and third metaphors are very closely related.
10
A fine analysis of the use of metaphor in representing nature is Brendan Larson's
(2011)
Metaphors for environmental sustainability: redefining our relationship with nature.
11
This is precisely the idea I myself have traded on in using the several maps in this
chapter: the earlier ones of global forest cover and of British Columbia, and the later
map of Fraser Island.
12
Most of the human genome, in keeping with all life forms, is metaphorically 'junk'
DNA. This means that only a relatively small portion of it 'codes' for organism
development.
13
As historian Mary Poovey (1998: xi) said over a decade ago, 'numbers constitute
something like the last frontier of representation' for critics like her (and me). Crump
(1990) is among several anthropologists who examine numbering as a cultural act.
Historians of science and technology, and their relation to statecraft, have looked at
the circumstances in which numbers were attached to new 'real world phenomena'
and used in new ways. In a more abstract register, philosophers of mathematics have,
in different ways, sought to denaturalise numbers, numbering and various complex
mathematical procedures (like calculus).
14
What molecular biologists across the world know simply as 'Anderson' was an early
reference genome for mitochondrial (rather than nuclear) DNA. In a fine study, sci-
ence sociologist Amade M'charek (2009) explores some of the complexities typically
backgrounded in its use as a research tool - complexities attaching to its manufacture
as an object of knowledge.
15
'Most of genetics is no more than a search for diversity,' observed Steve Jones
(1993: 21) in his earlier mentioned work of popular science
The language of the genes
.
This is illustrated by the high-profile, but ultimately failed, project to map human
genome diversity led by the famous population geneticist Luca Cavalli-Sforza. The
founding assumption of this project is that while
homo sapiens
were, presumably,
originally more genetically uniform than today, long-run processes of genetic recom-
bination and mutation have altered our genetic make up as our long-dead ancestors
slowly migrated from east Africa. Population geneticists like Cavalli-Sforza had long
maintained that biological differences existed between groups of humans, but the
new genetic technologies post-1970 gave him and fellow travellers powerful new tools
with which to advance their research agenda. Though the Human Genome Diversity
