what genes cant do

[...]... as well as in what structural and dynamic relationship they would reside Indeed, it is just this sense of genes being able to do this which appears to be conveyed with references to genes as information, as programs, as blueprints, as encyclopedias of life, and the like Following the strategy of chapter 1, chapter 2 examines the historical genesis of the genes- as-text metaphor, but in so doing a new... the anticonflationary, epigenesist critique Finally, chapter 5 will look beyond the Human Genome Project and the “century of the gene” (Keller 2001) into what appears to be the lineaments of a new rebirth of biology and its philosophy in the twenty-first century What Genes Can’t Do 1 Genesis of the Gene But however far we may proceed in analysing the genotypes into separable genes or factors, it must... examining the perceptive insights of rhetoric-of-science critic Richard Doyle Ultimately, however, I take issue with Doyle over what appears to be his own tacit methodological complicity with that xviii Introduction autonomization of rhetoric that he ostensibly means to be criticizing With the interpretive sensitivity of a good literary critic, Doyle exposes the semantic stakes in a manner that far outreaches... lays down as a matter of principle that organisms differ from inanimate Genesis of the Gene 7 objects because they are substantial beings, whose souls at the same time make them into unified forms and enable them to act appropriately to meet environmental contingencies in behaviorally plastic ways.” But what did Aristotle mean by a soul? What he didn’t mean was some form of disembodied spirit or idea What. .. preformationist Gene-P and the epigenesis Gene-D, and from this follows a consideration of what it would mean for a gene to satisfy the conditions for being both a Gene-P and a Gene-D simultaneously Introduction xvii The empirical fruits of several decades of research in molecular, cell, and developmental biology have revealed that what distinguishes one biological form from another is seldom, if ever, the presence... relevant locus of interest for understanding how so-called simple nature can acquire complex, adapted form, one can bring into focus just what the real demarcation is between what became orthodox neo-Darwinist perspectives of the twentieth century and their most signi cant antecedents The idea that the real focus ought not be upon the organism and its ontogeny but rather in processes that occur over many... certain genetic template but rather when and where genes are expressed, how they are modified, and into what structural and dynamic relationships their “products” become embedded If genes are to be both molecules which function as physical templates for the synthesis of other molecules and determinants of organismic traits and phenotypes, then somehow genes would have to, in effect, provide their own... did so through a theory of epigenesis Complex, highly organized, adapted life-forms were understood to be the 6 Chapter 1 achievement of an ontogeny in each and every case Epigenesis—the theory of the progressive, step-wise acquisition of adapted form during the developmental life history of an organism—was a hallmark and centerpiece of Aristotelian biology By considering what has been the relevant locus... preformationist view from which it arose With this somewhat bare-boned structure in mind, I will now try better to prepare the reader for some of the winding curves and vistas that come up along the way A main objective of chapter 1 is to account for how a putatively misguided notion of the gene could have possibly arisen and in so doing to clarify just what is conceptually at issue My principal strategy... defining and distinguishing two different genes Each of these can be seen as an heir to one of the two major historical trends in explaining the source of biological order: preformationism and epigenesis The preformationist gene (Gene-P) predicts phenotypes but only on an instrumental basis where immediate medical and/or economic benefits can be had The gene of epigenesis (Gene-D), by contrast, is a developmental . Reproductive Autonomy Carolyn McLeod What Genes Can’t Do Lenny Moss What Genes Can’t Do Lenny Moss A Bradford Book The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2003 Massachusetts Institute. underlying interpretation of what it means to be human; and socially, with respect to the defining, normalizing, and pathologizing of human difference. The title What Genes Can’t Do is meant to recall What Computers. twenty-first century. xx Introduction What Genes Can’t Do 1 Genesis of the Gene But however far we may proceed in analysing the genotypes into separable genes or factors, it must always be borne