ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the cultural background and the historical context for understanding the contemporary project of biotechnology. These background and context deeply inform current developments in gene editing, thereby playing a defining role in the stated aspirations by gene editing scientists, as well as in the broader ramifications of their work. Tracing recent developments in biotechnology, from synthetic biology to digital biology to gene editing, this chapter examines the way long-standing analogies between “the logic of life” and “the logic of computers” have been literalized and institutionalized, and how this is transforming our collective relationship to the regulation of living things.
