Suchergebnisse

Genomic analyses have shown that only 1.2 per cent of the genome is devoted to protein coding sequences (the most commonly invoked definition of genes), and that much of the remaining sequences are employed in regulation – that is, in responding to signals, first, from the immediate environment of the DNA, but ultimately from the distal environment – from the cytoplasm, from the environment outside the cell, and finally, from the environment beyond the organism. Such signals are not restricted to the simple physical and chemical stimuli that impinge directly on the DNA, on the surface of the cell, or even on the body as a whole: organisms with central nervous systems have receptors for forms of perception that are not only more complex but far longer range. Humans have especially sophisticated perceptual capacities, enabling them to respond to a wide range of complex visual, auditory, linguistic and behavioural/emotional signals in their extended environment. Research has recently begun to show that responses to such signals can extend all the way down to the level of gene expression. The question is this: to what extent are we witnessing (at last) a rapprochement between the natural science of biology and the human sciences of sociology and anthropology, and to what extent do the new promises of synthesis merely reflect an expansion of older reductionist aims, threatening once again to marginalize rather than incorporate the insights of cultural analysis? As in my earlier discussion of the nature/nurture debate (2010), my focus will be restricted to the Anglo-American context.

The campaign to discredit predictions of man-made global warming—originally organized by readily identifiable vested interests—has by now recruited a large popular constituency of declared "skeptics" increasingly disposed to "take a stand": some of them opposed to government regulation in general, some resistant to any claims to intellectual authority (perhaps especially scientific), and some mobilized by a version of the right to individual freedom of opinion. As a result, confidence in the expertise of scientists has reached an all time low: Internet sites, radio talk shows, and television channels preferentially transmit "contrarian" attacks on the credibility of climate scientists. Even our most responsible newspapers and journals, in their very commitment to the traditional ethic of "balance," sometimes contribute to the widespread misimpression that climate scientists are deeply divided about both the extent of the dangers we face and the relevance of human activity to global warming. Not knowing who or what to believe, the natural response for most people is to do nothing, and the consequence, as Thomas Homer-Dixon wrote last year for the New York Times: "Climate policy is gridlocked, and there's virtually no chance of a breakthrough" (2010). Meanwhile, as evidence both of the role of human contributions to global warming and the dangers of that warming continues to mount, consensus among climate scientists grows ever stronger, and those of us who attend to that evidence are increasingly alarmed.

Neste artigo, quero fazer a afirmação provocadora de que há algumas maneiras em que mudamos a ciência, mesmo que, uma vez mais, não exatamente da maneira ampla que algumas de nós imagináramos. Para fundamentar essa afirmação, arrolarei algumas mudanças - todas elas na biologia, e todas em óbvia simpatia com os objetivos feministas, mudanças que tiveram lugar tanto com o maior acesso das mulheres à ciência quanto com o surgimento da crítica feminista da ciência.