Politics in the Laboratory: The Constitution of Human Genomics

Extract

Politics in the Laboratory: The Constitution of Human Genomics. By Ira H. Carmen. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004. 324p. $35.

This book is sure to spark debate among readers. It will also prove to be tough sledding for many biologists and political scientists alike. Political scientists will be challenged by the author's understanding of the language, logic, and findings of genetics and the human genomics (his detailed analysis of techniques of genetic analysis, for instance, will be alien to many political scientists). Biologists will be hard-pressed at times to get a handle on the political side of the book (e.g., throwaway references to “strict scrutiny” may be obscure to biologists not familiar with American constitutional doctrine). Thus, a number of readers may well find it frustrating to launch into this book. The author himself acknowledges this when he says (p. xii): “The study may be hard going for some political scientists. It will also probably be hard going for genomicists. They are as ignorant of political science as political scientists are ignorant of them.”