Genes in Development ：Re-reading the Molecular Paradigm ( Science and Cultural Theory )

Publication subTitle ：Re-reading the Molecular Paradigm

Publication series ：Science and Cultural Theory

Author： Eva M. Neumann-Held  

Publisher： Duke University Press‎

Publication year： 2006

E-ISBN: 9780822387336

P-ISBN(Paperback): 9780822336679

P-ISBN(Hardback):  9780822336563

Subject： Q344 (Genetics) The occurrence of developmental genetics, physiology and genetics

Keyword： Developmental genetics., Developmental Biology -- methods., Growth and Development -- genetics., DNA -- genetics., Evolution., Genetic Determinism., Genetic Processes.

Language： ENG

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Description

In light of scientific advances such as genomics, predictive diagnostics, genetically engineered agriculture, nuclear transfer cloning, and the manipulation of stem cells, the idea that genes carry predetermined molecular programs or blueprints is pervasive. Yet new scientific discoveries—such as rna transcripts of single genes that can lead to the production of different compounds from the same pieces of dna—challenge the concept of the gene alone as the dominant factor in biological development. Increasingly aware of the tension between certain empirical results and interpretations of those results based on the orthodox view of genetic determinism, a growing number of scientists urge a rethinking of what a gene is and how it works. In this collection, a group of internationally renowned scientists present some prominent alternative approaches to understanding the role of dna in the construction and function of biological organisms.

Contributors discuss alternatives to the programmatic view of dna, including the developmental systems approach, methodical culturalism, the molecular process concept of the gene, the hermeneutic theory of description, and process structuralist biology. None of the approaches cast doubt on the notion that dna is tremendously important to biological life on earth; rather, contributors examine different ideas of how dna should be represented, evaluated, and explained. Just as ideas about genetic codes have reached far beyond

Chapter

CONTENTS

Introduction

I Empirical Approaches

1 Genome Analysis and Developmental Biology: The Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a Model System

2 Genes and Form: Inherency in the Evolution of Developmental Mechanisms

II Looking Back into History

3 From Genes as Determinants to dna as Resource: Historical Notes on Development and Genetics

III Theorizing Genes

4 The Origin of Species: A Structuralist Approach

5 On the Problem of the Molecular versus the Organismic Approach in Biology

6 Genes, Development, and Semiosis

7 The Fearless Vampire Conservator: Philip Kitcher, Genetic Determinism, and the Informational Gene

8 Genetics from an Evolutionary Process Perspective

9 Genes—Causes—Codes: Deciphering dna’s Ontological Privilege

10 Boundaries and (Constructive) Interaction

11 Beyond the Gene but Beneath the Skin

12 Poiesis and Praxis: Two Modes of Understanding Development

IV Social and Ethical Implications

13 Developmental Emergence, Genes, and Responsible Science

14 Nothing Like a Gene

Contributors

Index

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