Craig Venter and the Re-programming of Life: How metaphors shape and perform ethical discourses in the media presentation of synthetic biology

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Abstract

Synthetic Biology is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary science at the confluence of biology and engineering. It focuses on the design and fabrication of biological systems through the ‘writing’ of DNA. This newest field in the ‘new’ genetics is increasingly seen as a paradigmatic shift in our relationship with nature. In this chapter we will show that when scientists and the media try to convey its novel features and promises, they tend to use a language which, although rooted in the discourses used to frame older genetic advances such as genetic engineering and the decoding of the Human Genome Project (HGP), changes the focus of metaphorical framing from interpreting and altering to inventing and fabricating. This underlines both the field’s continuity and similarity with what has gone before but also signals various discontinuities and differences.

Keyword(s)

ELSI; craig venter; ethics; human genome project; metaphors; synthetic biology

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