ABSTRACT
In The Century of the Gene, Evelyn Fox Keller argues that the Human Genome Project (HGP) has undermined the very conceptual foundations on which it was predicated, making it impossible to ignore the gap between the reductionism of the gene-centred paradigm and the complexity of living organisms (Keller 2000). As a consequence she suggests that the gene may be a concept past its time. Looking to the future, she predicts that the primacy of the gene as a core explanatory concept of biological structure and function was more a feature of the twentieth century than it will be of the twenty-first, and she anticipates the emergence of a new lexicon for the life sciences. In the years since the publication of Keller’s book, the HGP has been
formally completed, several new global research initiatives, including the International HapMap Project and the Human Proteome Project, have been started, and a number of events and publications have been organised where leading scientists have communicated their visions of the future of the biosciences. A recurrent feature of these communications is their use of revolutions, exemplars, new eras and other features of ‘paradigm talk’. This chapter examines whether, at this admittedly early stage of the twentyfirst century, such paradigm talk is evidence of Keller’s predicted demise of the gene. Taking its cue from Keller’s focus on language, the method of analysis is based on close attention to words used (and not used) and the meanings attached to them. The structure of the chapter is as follows. The first section is a brief
etymological overview of the twentieth century from the perspective of genes and DNA, while the following section supplements this history with information about the interplay of DNA and proteins. The purpose of these two sections is to provide background information for the next three sections, which analyse three contrasting visions of the future: the genomic era; from genomics to proteomics; and the new biology. The final section compares and contrasts these visions and reflects upon Keller’s thesis of the fate of the gene in the twenty-first century.
