Genes and the Bioimaginary

There is no doubt that the author of this penetrating book is correct that the gene 'has now powerfully and pervasively infiltrated the full fabric of contemporary life' in both a scientific and cultural sense. In this case, as in many others, science and culture are in fact inseparable and mutually influencing. Sometimes, as this book and its studies demonstrate, the influence is hidden in assumptions and even social structures, for instance the nature of the Reith Lectures and the cultivation of specialist expertise. This involves the generation and validation of knowledge as well as its communication within an implied power structure; also the promises of transformation as justification for continuing levels of research funding (she illustrates this with a begging letter on breast cancer BRCA research). The metaphor of the body as machine is never far away, as also evidenced by the use of such terms as programme and engineering going back to the 17th-century scientific revolution. The rhetoric can also be redemptive and correspondingly seductive.

One of the strengths of this study is the different methodologies applied to the various case studies including gay genes, genes and crime and the search for a Jewish gene. One point of departure was the Reith Lectures given by Steve Jones in 1991, which was an important milestone in the popularisation of genetic discourse, indeed referring to genes as a language and set of instructions. These are illustrated with cartoon versions that reveal a great deal about underlying cultural assumptions. Genes can become a putative locus of responsibility both in terms of disease and crime, although the causal reality is much more complex and multifactorial. There is nevertheless a temptation to argue in narrow linear terms. In her concluding chapter, the author shows how genes are real at a number of levels, including what she calls the bioimaginary where their power lies within the human imagination. This is a thoughtful interdisciplinary study that raises important issues about genes and culture.