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The Genomization of Biology: Counterbalancing Radical Reductionism

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History of Human Genetics

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Abstract

The term ‘genome’ was coined in 1920 by the German botanist Hans Winkler to describe the genetic material contained in the cell nucleus. Winkler’s idea was a holistic one that emphasized the relationship between the material in the nucleus and the cytoplasm. With the passage of time, this original idea has been modified in parallel with scientific and technological progress that has led to holism being sidelined in favour of an increasingly radical reductionism. These advances have brought about significant changes in the understanding of the phenomena of heredity, from the heuristic power of the concept of the genome, resulting eventually in ‘genomization’, that is to say, seeking understanding of the phenomena of inheritance exclusively through the ‘understanding’ of genomic material in physical terms, taking a step beyond ‘geneticization’. In this paper, we present the way in which genomization has followed a path that parallels the progress in genome studies, with the consolidation of the genomization of biology deriving from achievements such as the Human Genome Project and the consequent reassertion of reductionism as the dominant view. We will base our reconstruction on the original material of the authors who contributed to the knowledge of the genome, during the twentieth century in particular, combined with reflections on the impact of genomization on different fields of knowledge down the years. In this way, we hope to put forward a proposal that not only emphasizes the need to reconsider the way in which the historiography of biology has been carried out but also the impact that radical reductionism has had on the understanding and dissemination of contemporary biology.

This essay is an expanded and revised version of Noguera-Solano et al., 2013. The original version was presented at the Fifth International Workshop on the History of Human Genetics: ‘The Biological Future of Man: Continuities and Breaks in the History of Human Genetics, Before and After 1945’, Nuremberg, Germany, June 21–23, 2012.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Winkler 1920.

  2. 2.

    Noguera-Solano et al. 2013.

  3. 3.

    Winkler 1924a.

  4. 4.

    Noguera-Solano et al. 2013, 218.

  5. 5.

    Ibid.

  6. 6.

    Ibid.

  7. 7.

    Ibid.

  8. 8.

    Ibid.

  9. 9.

    Ibid.

  10. 10.

    Harwood 1984.

  11. 11.

    At this point, we would like to make a terminological clarification. As noted by Dutch physician and bioethicist Henk ten Have, explicit mention of geneticization began in the early 1990s with the work of Abby Lippman (1991, 1992, 1993), i.e., the extreme emphasis given to the use of genetic techniques, as well as the interpretation and description of health issues and disease based only on genetic explanations. In ten Have’s words, ‘this process implies a redefinition of individuals in terms of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) codes, a new language to describe and interpret human life and behavior in a genomic vocabulary of codes, blueprints, traits, dispositions, genetic mapping and a gene-technological approach to disease, health and the body’ (ten Have, 2012). As we will see throughout the text, geneticization to genomization can even be thought of as synonyms, although the difference arises from the scope of the respective disciplines, genetics and genomics, and in that sense, the transition is from a more restricted to a broader vision, though always within the scope of reductionism.

  12. 12.

    F.e. Lane 1997; Clarke 2003; Midanik 2004; Rock et al. 2007; Bell 2010.

  13. 13.

    We use the term in a similar sense to Lane, 1997; Clarke 2003; Midanik 2004; Rock et al. 2007; Bell 2010, among others, though with certain differences, as we note below.

  14. 14.

    Harwood 1993.

  15. 15.

    On the topic of nuclear monopoly, see: Sapp 1987, 54–86; Harwood 1993, 315–350.

  16. 16.

    East 1934—The nucleus-plasma problem. Amer. Nat. 63: 289–303; 402–439.

  17. 17.

    East 1934, 300.

  18. 18.

    Winkler 1908.

  19. 19.

    In German: “...den haploiden Chromosomensatz, der im Verein mit dem zugehörigen Protoplasma die materielle Grundlage der systematischen Einheit darstellt, den Ausdruck”. Winkler, 1920, 165. (Haploid chromosome: halving the chromosome number).

  20. 20.

    Noguera-Solano et al. 2013, 213.

  21. 21.

    Harwood 1984.

  22. 22.

    Harwood 1984.

  23. 23.

    Winkler, 1924a. F.e. see Pangene. In: Winkler, 1908,149; Genotype. In: Winkler 1924, 238; Morgan’s theory. In: Winkler 1924a, 240–241.

  24. 24.

    Harwood 1993.

  25. 25.

    Von Wettstein 1924; von Wettstein 1926, 259.

  26. 26.

    Noguera-Solano et al. 2013, 214.

  27. 27.

    Demerec 1933.

  28. 28.

    Noguera-Solano et al. 2013, 214.

  29. 29.

    Esposito 2013.

  30. 30.

    Noguera-Solano et al. 2013, 214.

  31. 31.

    The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) provides an etymology of the term coined by Winkler, Genome, consisting of an irregular form of gene + soma, the latter derived from chromosome, whereas Lederberg suggests an alternative etymology. ‘As a botanist, Winkler must have been familiar with … –ome, … signifying the collectivity of the units in the stem’. Therefore, the genome should be understood as all genes collectively. See Lederberg 2001.

  32. 32.

    Winkler 1924b.

  33. 33.

    F.e. Emes 2003; Branco-Price 2005; Bonilla-Rosso 2008.

  34. 34.

    See for instance Cytologia I (1930), 14; Müntzing 1930, 293.

  35. 35.

    Jones 1932, 275; 369.

  36. 36.

    See for instance Müntzing 1932; Müntzing 1935; Krishnaswamy 1939.

  37. 37.

    Dobzhansky 1951, 216–217.

  38. 38.

    Barthelmess 1952, 293.

  39. 39.

    Rostand 1957, 26.

  40. 40.

    Jinks 1964, 4–5.

  41. 41.

    Muller 1962, 175.

  42. 42.

    Muller 1962, 188.

  43. 43.

    C. H. Waddington, for example, uses terms such as genotype, nuclear material, collection of genes, and entire set of hereditary factors to discuss the material of heredity. See Waddington, 1939, 137; 322.

  44. 44.

    See f.e. Esposito 2013, 95–102, 141–143.

  45. 45.

    From Stent’s view, ‘the genome was the sum total of all genes of an individual’; see Stent, 1978, 15; 382.

  46. 46.

    James Watson defined the genome first as haploid set of chromosomes, with their associated genes. See Watson, 1970, 705.

  47. 47.

    Dobzhansky 1970, 345.

  48. 48.

    Dobzhansky 1970, 385–386.

  49. 49.

    Noguera-Solano et al. 2013, 215.

  50. 50.

    Noguera-Solano et al. 2013, 215–216.

  51. 51.

    Jacob 1961, 254.

  52. 52.

    Reardon 2005; López Beltrán, 2011; Wae 2014.

  53. 53.

    Rock et al. 2007; Galesi 2014.

  54. 54.

    Smith 1986, 674–679.

  55. 55.

    Nagl et al. 1979.

  56. 56.

    Noguera-Solano et al. 2013, 216.

  57. 57.

    Dyson 1999.

  58. 58.

    Noguera-Solano et al. 2013, 216.

  59. 59.

    Galesi 2014, 173.

  60. 60.

    Galesi 2014, 184.

  61. 61.

    Noguera-Solano et al. 2013, 216.

  62. 62.

    Ibid.

  63. 63.

    López Beltrán, 2011, 12.

  64. 64.

    On the social implications of genomic studies, see also Reardon, 2005; Wade et al. 2014.

  65. 65.

    Sanger 1977.

  66. 66.

    Report of the Department of Energy, Human Genome News, 1990.

  67. 67.

    Smith 1995.

  68. 68.

    Metting 1997.

  69. 69.

    Noguera-Solano et al. 2013, 217.

  70. 70.

    Ibid.

  71. 71.

    By this we are referring to disciplines that arose from the HGP, for example, proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, lipidomics, as well as all the others that continue to emerge. A general definition of the suffix is ‘Omics is a general term for a broad discipline of science and engineering for analyzing the interactions of biological information objects in various ‘omes’. […] The main focus is on: (1) mapping information objects such as genes, proteins, and ligands; (2) finding interaction relationships among the objects; (3) engineering the networks and objects to understand and manipulate the regulatory mechanisms; and (4) integrating various omes and omics subfields’. See about this site: Omics. (n.d.). Retrieved 2 August 2016, from http://www.nature.com/omics/about/index.html

  72. 72.

    As a point of general interest, Margulis made the original proposal while married to Carl Sagan, which is why her surname is so given.

  73. 73.

    Sagan 1967.

  74. 74.

    Noguera-Solano et al. 2013, 218.

  75. 75.

    Ibid.

  76. 76.

    See f.e. Nicholson y Gawne, 2015.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Evolutionary Biology, School of Sciences, UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico

    Ricardo Noguera-Solano & Rosaura Ruiz-Gutierrez

  2. Postgraduate Program on Philosophy of Science, UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico

    Juan Manuel Rodriguez-Caso

Authors
  1. Ricardo Noguera-Solano
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  2. Rosaura Ruiz-Gutierrez
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  3. Juan Manuel Rodriguez-Caso
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Correspondence to Ricardo Noguera-Solano .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Ethik, Geschichte und Theorie der Medizin, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Heike I. Petermann

  2. Institute of Medical Genetics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom

    Peter S. Harper

  3. Institut für Geschichte der Medizin und Ethik in der Medizin, Charité-Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Susanne Doetz

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Noguera-Solano, R., Ruiz-Gutierrez, R., Rodriguez-Caso, J.M. (2017). The Genomization of Biology: Counterbalancing Radical Reductionism. In: Petermann, H., Harper, P., Doetz, S. (eds) History of Human Genetics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51783-4_8

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