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Following an opening address by science writer Horace Freeland Judson [George Washington University (GWU)], Raymond F. Gesteland (University of Utah) reviewed his large-scale sequencing project. Clinical molecular geneticist Thaddeus Dryja (Harvard Medical School) followed with a specific examination of the genetics of retinoblastoma, with discussion points raised by geneticist David Hyde (UND). Later sessions dealt with historical issues [John Beatty (University of Minnesota); Lily Kay (Massachusetts Institute of Technology {MIT}); Evelyn Fox Keller (MIT)] with commentaries by Hans-Joerg Rheinberger (University of Salzburg, Austria), Jean Gayon (Universit de Bourgogne, France), and Timothy Lenoir (Stanford University). Vigorous floor discussions concerned the notions of code and the language and metaphors used in the Human Genome Project. Beatty presented a historical perspective as it related to DOEs atomic energy work and the national laboratories. The interaction of humanistic and clinical concerns was explored in papers by John M. Opitz (Shodair Childrens Hospital, Helena, Montana) and Harvey Bender (UND), with commentary by Jessica Davis (Cornell Medical Center). Opitz raised concerns about the growing geneticization of society, in which human beings increasingly are being seen as readouts of their genes. This theme recurred in later sessions. Topics related to the sociology and anthropology of knowledge were addressed in papers by Stephen Hilgartner (Cornell University) and French sociologist and science anthropologist Jean-Paul Gaudillire (Institut National de la Sant et de la Recherche Medicale, Paris), with commentaries by Michael Fortun (Hampshire College) and Robert Bud (Science Museum, London). These papers generated discussions concerning the sociology of intercommunicating networks within human genomics and clinical decision-making as seen from a French perspective. Other sessions offered insights into issues of reductionism, concern about new forms of eugenics, and science-religion questions. Main papers were presented by Kenneth Schaffner (GWU), Arthur Caplan (University of Pennsylvania), Philip Kitcher (University of California, San Diego), Arthur Peacocke (University of Oxford, England), and Kevin Fitzgerald (Georgetown University). Commentaries were made by Edward Manier (UND), Timothy Murphy (University of Illinois College of Medicine), Diane Paul (University of Massachusetts, Boston), J. Robert Nelson (Texas Medical Center), Ernan McMullin (UND), and John Staudenmaier (University of Detroit). Caplans concern with a new form of homemade eugenics that might result from the genome project and Kitchers development of distributive-justice issues surrounding the projects future sparked an active discussion about social applications of genetic knowledge. Five parallel contributed-paper sessions were organized around the philosophy of science, medical ethics, distributive justice and the genome project, and the use of metaphor and imagery in human genetics. An address by UND President Emeritus Theodore M. Hesburgh was followed by the showing of a short DOE-sponsored interactive teaching program. A final round-table of the participants and a commentary by UND medical ethicist Richard McCormick closed the conference. |
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