Infrastructure and Scaffolding
Interpretation and Change of Research Involving Human Genetic Information
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12205366 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter J Taylor (0000-0002-9242-8658, University of Massachusetts Boston, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 435-459 |
| Publication date | 2009-07-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Science as Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0950-5431 • E-ISSN: 1470-1189 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09505430902946649 |
| OpenAlex | W2125796953 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 28 |
This essay addresses the relationship of interpretation to change, at two levels. One level concerns the revolutionary claims of molecular biology and biotechnology about using genetic information, read literally or with a minimum of interpretation, to reshape human life. The other level concerns the relationship in social studies of science and technology (STS) between interpreting projects in the life sciences and influencing their direction. On that level, the essay is experimental, employing a series of vignettes that introduce themes and questions—scaffolding—intended to stimulate readers to make their own connections between interpretation and change, in science, STS, and society. The vignettes in Part 1, which range from treatment of individuals with PKU or MAOA genes to personalized medicine and biobanks, indicate in different ways that the use of genetic information always requires social infrastructure. Once attention is given to the actual or implied social infrastructure, the prospect of reshaping life using human genetic information raises more questions than it answers. This thread carries over into Part 2, which speaks to an area of STS that needs more development, namely, conceptualizing the structure of the social context of scientific and technological developments and the nature of human agency in the ongoing restructuring of that context. The vignettes create a picture in which the influence on science of an STS interpretation will, like any effort to produce change, depend on how it links with other engagements and with the heterogeneous components that make up ongoing, intersecting processes of science in society
Agency (philosophy · Biobank · Biology · Context (archaeology · Engineering ethics · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Political science · Restructuring · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Engineering · Law · Philosophy and History of Science · Race, Genetics, and Society · Genetics
Science in action
Life events and illness
Cognition in the Wild
Single mothers, poverty and depression
Heritability estimates versus large environmental effects
Role of Genotype in the Cycle of Violence in Maltreated Children
Europe and the people without history
Burning to Read
Understanding the Black-White Test Score Gap in the First Two Years of School
Stages in the Empirical Programme of Relativism
The meaning and measurement of race in the U.S. census
Intelligence
The History of Twins, as a Criterion of the Relative Powers of Nature and Nurture
The Black-White Test Score Gap
Historicizing the Global, Politicizing Capital
Opening address
Militant Particularism and Global Ambition
Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation
A Theory of Structure
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,25 |
| Citation span | 2010 - 2021 (12) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |