ABSTRACT
This introduction chapter provides an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores how genetics and society are shaped by technology, cultural beliefs, and current social practices. Voices from various disciplines such as sociology, ethics, philosophy, biomedicine, anthropology and the arts, aim at a multi-faceted reflection on promises and pitfalls, hopes and fears, as well as categories of personal freedom, autonomy and responsibility in times of personal genetics. Personalised medicine is a more comprehensive endeavour aiming at the increasing consideration of individual differences in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, in which genomics plays an important role. Genetic determinism implies that genes are the immutable 'hard ware' of human beings that ultimately determine the boundaries of what is changeable by individual and social practice. Ethical reflections concerning the social implications, beyond the individual and her family, can be subsumed under the term of 'social responsibility'.
