ABSTRACT
Biotechnology, a voracious rubric comprising a wide range of biological possibilities, holds unprecedented potential for translating basic knowledge of fundamental biological processes into numerous applications. Broad lessons are contained in these two science-society revolutions, the most obvious and relevant being the pervasive and far-reaching changes to society resulting from paradigmatic changes in the scientific knowledge and worldview. As basic science it represented knowledge of the genetic information that translates DNA into the structures and functions of species. Knowledge for making bombs was simultaneously knowledge of causation and knowledge of technology. The principal milestones in advancing the biological sciences and in advancing the technologies for converting basic knowledge into useful procedures and products occurred during the contemporary period of advanced modernity. In contrast, the neoliberal ideology dominating contemporary biotechnology has declared society dead—a fictitious reification. Though orders of magnitude greater, these, too, are the forces that will determine the future of biotechnology—and the re-shaping of society.
