In 1980 the first recombinant genetic engineering experiments on humans were performed. These experiments sparked a major controversy, international in scope and potentially profound in its implications for genetic science. We develop four perspectives—substantive, network, organizational, and societal—from which science can be seen as a process having differing social implication and meaning. The research and controversy are discussed with attention to the conflicts and their resolutions from each perspective and among them. Taken together, the four perspectives are used as a single basis for understanding the social processes involved in this case study and the more general workings of science.

Though not the first attempt to ameliorate a human genetic disease by modifying somatic cells, the experiments performed by Dr. Martin J. Cline on two women suffering from thalassemia (one in Jerusalem, the other in Naples) were the first and still the only ones to use rDNA techniques.1 In some respects the criticism and censure of Cline by the NIH resembles the case of Dr. Ian T. Kennedy.2 Both Cline and Kennedy were found guilty of having violated the NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules, but there is a crucial difference between the two cases. Cline attempted to implant genetically altered cells into human beings. Consequently, his work involved moral issues concerning the use of human subjects in biomedical experiments which go beyond the usual concerns over safety and control in rDNA research. In fact, I shall argue that the rDNA aspect of the Cline affair was relatively minor compared with the moral reasoning which guided the actions and judgments of Cline and his critics. Despite its importance for understanding the behavior of the participants, this ethical dimension does not receive adequate emphasis in Robin and Markle's account of the Cline episode within the framework of their four sociological perspectives (substantive, network, organizational, societal).

Robin and Markle's “Let No One Split Asunder: Controversy in Human Genetic Engineering” is a notable contribution to the sociology of science and a clarification of some important social and political issues in the current controversy around the new recombinant DNA technologies. Their four-fold taxonomy of levels of inquiry and analysis is a theoretical advance. It is also a device for illuminating, decoding, deciphering, and finally for bettering our understanding of what happened structurally in the Cline case. Much of the contemporary work in the sociology of science touches on a few, or even several of these dimensions, but because the analytic categories are frequently (if inadvertently) run together, one is often burdened with a confusing vault between levels. (Few authors make the analytic distinctions of different levels as do Robin and Markle, so it is hardly surprising that they would “run them together.”)

Professors Stanley Robin and Gerald Markle ably describe the sociological factors at work in Dr. Martin Cline's foray into gene therapy during the mid-1970s. Much of what transpired can be understood in terms of the dialectical tensions between clinicians and researchers. But there is a second tier of questions raised by Cline's conduct, questions which transcend the issues of simple improprieties and possible illegalities of his actions.

Robin and Markle nicely illuminate the highly-publicized Cline case by examining it in turn from the substantive, network, organizational, and societal perspectives. They never explain, however, why this particular case was so highly publicized, in contrast to other instances of questionable ethics in biomedical research that never reached public attention. Without some explanation for the notoriety given to Cline's actions, their four perspectives seem seriously incomplete.

One of the expectations of science, from both substantive and network perspectives, is its cumulative nature. It is a strong hope that scientific research and analysis promote an extension of knowledge as a function of critique and as a stimulus for extension. We are pleased that the comments of Curd, Duster, Lappé, and Mazur help us (and, we hope, others) better understand and appreciate our case study.

Definitions being critical to systematic analysis, aggression is here defined as intentional injury to person or damage to property. The issue of consciousness of intent is considered. No claim is made that either conscious or unconscious aggression is necessarily wrongful, but that it is elicited with respect to the frustration of a variety of organically based physical and mental needs. Physiology has made progress toward understanding the two-way interaction between vertebrates and their environment, so that we have good hunches that aggressive behavior varies as a function of the level of several endocrines and of electrical charge in several parts of the brain. Suggestions are made for improving the utility of some basic political theory to physiological research and vice versa, so that social science can move beyond the speculations of the 18th century philosophers and can use some very relevant physiological findings.

The mystical title of this commentary on Professor Davies' provocative and timely key article is intended to emphasize my belief that many of the problems of attempting to relate biology to ‘aggression’ stem from deliberate or inadvertent reification. ‘Aggression’ is clearly a ‘concept’ and not an ‘entity’ and, as such, it is difficult to perceive the very diverse activities receiving this label as having a common physiology. Concepts are adopted (or eventually rejected) on the basis of usefulness not correctness. This is not to deny that any useful reference to aggression must concern animals, i.e., creatures with physiologies. Most individuals in their dispassionate moments would not regard the sea or a volcano as being aggressive and would certainly fail to apply this attribute to dry-rot fungus.

Writing as someone outside the field of political science, but very much involved in studies of behavior-physiology interactions, James Davies' article seems to me to be compelling in its argument for a reorientation of much of political science to include biology. As Davies points out, there is clear and convincing evidence that different physiological states are associated with different probabilities of aggression. Moreover, he cited only a part of the available evidence. At this time, data strongly support two of his points: multiple factors (e.g., genetic, developmental) contribute to the long-run probability of aggression; and different levels of neurotransmitters and hormones contribute to the short-run probability of aggression. All higher animal forms (and lower forms insofar as is known) are capable of aggression, however, within-animal frequency and type of aggression differ. Thus, what factors alter the probability of aggression under different circumstances becomes a question of great interest. It is this issue that Davies addresses. Yet, he may not have gone far enough in his effort to alert readers about the importance of understanding physiological processes as an essential requisite for understanding aggression in particular and behavior in general.

Although the target article, which attempts to clarify how physiological knowledge may resolve and guide research into aggressive behavior at a political level, raises many important issues, and in particular, draws attention to several specific areas where analyses of physiology and social behavior may be fruitfully pursued, it fails, in my view, to provide a suitable framework for such an endeavor for two reasons: one, a truncated definition of aggression, and two, a confounding of levels of analysis. After examining these two problems, I will end this commentary by highlighting and expanding upon one of those issues raised by Davies which may provide a valuable source of research.

There is a happy irony in the fact that an essay on aggression—whether political or otherwise, violent or otherwise, and whether physical or verbal—should elicit comments that are in these ways not at all aggressive. In this rather scientific polylogue, you as reader and I as author are thus spared the need and even the temptation to respond with defensive verbal aggression.

As our title indicates, by almost every measure, 1986 was a good year for biopolitics. First, the total number of items which appeared, 116, set an all-time record (the previous high was 92 in 1985). Second, there continued to be an influx of new entrants, with 22 first-time contributors emerging from our literature search. Third, 15 percent of the items were written by non-American political scientists, up from last year's 10 percent and an indication, we believe, of the healthy growth in international interest. Fourth, and perhaps best of all, five biopolitical dissertations-in-progress, or actually completed, were listed in the annual PS compilation, a nice upturn from 1984's low.

Science-based biotechnology is now introducing fundamental changes in the status of life on earth which have major implications for human society, yet the social sciences are largely failing to address these changes. Biotechnology offers immense opportunities for advancing the quality of human life, holding promise for overcoming numerous and heretofore intractable causes of suffering and impoverishment. Moreover, it may enable mankind to enjoy the benefits of science without degradation of the biosphere. But to obtain these advantages biotechnology must be guided by wise and timely public policies. Even the most beneficent innovation may create problems that, unless anticipated and prevented, may offset or cancel out social gains.

In a development parallel to the emergence of the biobehavioral orientation in political science, the ethology of law has become a prominent endeavor in the past ten years. That it is indeed a biobehavioral approach is a fact that received a cogent reminder at the Fifth International Conference on Human Ethology in Tutzing, West Germany, in 1986. In a major address at the conference, Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt defined human ethology as the biology of human behavior. Correspondingly, Wolfgang Fikentscher and Hagen Hof, in their respective presentations at the session on the ethology of law at the conference, emphasized that law is a particular form of human behavior, making it clear that the biobehavioral context for the study of law is imperative.

If this study were designed merely to prove that part of the explanation for despotism and differential reproduction exists in the genetic propensity of men to compete, to use power to serve their own interests, and to express that interest by seeking a variety of sexual partners, there would be little need for comment. Such a book could have been written in half the pages used. An inordinate amount of space, however, is used by the author in (1) rejecting any basis except biology to explain despotism; (2) castigating any possible use of culture in explaining differentials in male reproduction; (3) apologizing for her findings that evolution has led to inequality in both production and reproduction, a condition the author deplores; and (4) insisting that equality can be effected if humans simply decide to satisfy genetic propensities differently (which surely is a cultural matter since only humans can perceive the concept of evolution and attempt to change society's use of it).