Postgenomics: Perspectives on Biology after the Genome, by Sarah Richardson, Hallam Stevens
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project_muse_622074.pdf
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266.48 KB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Scheffler, Robin W
Date Issued
2016
Journal
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
Publisher
Muse - Johns Hopkins University Press
Citation
Scheffler, Robin Wolfe. "Postgenomics: Perspectives on Biology after the Genome ed. by Sarah Richardson, Hallam Stevens." Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 90, no. 2, 2016.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
n the decade following the controversy surrounding the completion of the Human Genome Project, genomics realized neither the promises of personalized genetic medicine nor the fears of a genetic brave new world. Instead, as Sarah Richardson and Hallam Stevens suggest in their introduction to this fine collection of essays, we have arrived at the beginning of a “postgenomic” era in biology and medicine. An ironic consequence of the intense study of genes has been the revelation that most of the human genome (99 percent by some estimates) does not “code” for any identifiable human traits. John Dupré reflects in his contribution that the relationship between genotype and phenotype has become even more fragmented the further it has been studied by genomics researchers. How are we to make sense, for example, of the substantial genomic variation among different kinds of tissues in the same body? The state of the art in genomics seems to have arrived where many science scholars started in the 1990s—profoundly skeptical of just what the study of genes can tell us. The rich contributions to this volume suggest the topography of this new postgenomic era for historians, social scientists, and philosophers.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Science, Technology and Society
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/622074
