The Gene

›The gene‹ owes its position as the central organising theme of 20th-century biology less to final scientific findings and more to the fact that its respective research object, i.e. its ›epistemic object‹, became accessible by instrumentally mediating, experimental handling step by step.

With the completion of sequencing entire genomes, especially the human genome, genetics – as a science a child of the 20th century – is facing another fundamental change. Many are beginning to question the concept of the gene in favour of systemic perspectives or want to abandon it completely. On the other hand, ideas that seemed to have been overcome, such as the inheritance of acquired characteristics or the classification of people into ›races‹, are re-entering the focus of scientific and medical debates. In order to define the present horizon of genetics in light of this confusing situation a historic standpoint is necessary. There is hardly any doubt about the fact that ›the gene‹ was the central organising theme of the 20th century. But an examination of the history of genetics and molecular biology shows that there has never been a universally accepted definition of the gene. Rather, the term has always been in flux.

Content

1 The Gene: A Concept in Flux

2 The Legacy of the Nineteenth Century

3 Mendel’s Findings

4 From Crossing to Mapping: Classical Gene Concepts

5 Classical Genetics Stretches Its Limits 6 Constructing and Deconstructing the Molecular Gene

7 The Toolkit of Gene Technology

8 Development and the Evolving Genome

9 Postgenomics, Systems Biology, Synthetic Biology

10 The Future of the Gene

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

Index

»As biotechnologist are promising a golden, genetically modified future, genetics – paradoxically – seem to be finished. Science historians Staffan Müller-Wille and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger call this present phase postgenomics and resolve the apparent tension in a pragmatically founded theory of science in their excellent book.« Manuela Lenzen, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung