[Sci-tech-public] 2009 Arthur Miller Lecture with Professor Troy Duster

[Bianca Singletary]

2009 Arthur Miller Lecture on Science and Ethics

 

 

Reflections on the Shifting Political & Cultural Status of Human Molecular
Genetics

Troy Duster

Silver Professor of Sociology

New York University

 

Abstract

In the short space of four decades, human genetics has catapulted from the
"poor relative" of the genetic sciences to a vanguard position in both
public consciousness and funding status.  Part of this is explained by the
revolution in molecular genetics brought about by both the reality and the
hyperbole of the mapping and sequencing of the human genome.  Part of this
is explained by the unrealistic hopes of both producers and consumers for a
"genetic fix" to complex human problems - from diseases to behaviors to
attributes.  From ancestry tracing to crime scene investigation, from
direct-to-consumer diagnostics to proposals for long-term gene-environment
research, we have witnessed a dramatic shift in both the political and
cultural status of human genetics.  In the coming decade, we will see a
clear fleshing out of these trends - nowhere more clearly than in the idea
of race.

 

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

4:00 pm

MIT Bartos Theater

Building E15-070

20 Ames Street, lower level

 

For more information

617 253-4062

http://mit.edu/sts/news/special.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**

Bianca Singletary

Assistant to Professor David Mindell, Director of STS

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Program in Science, Technology, and Society

Phone: 617 253-3452 Fax: 617 253-8118

web.mit.edu/sts/ 

 

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