Genes, Genomics and Human Nature

Dr. Evelyn Fox Keller (MIT)

7:00pm
Tuesday, March 30
Alumni Hall, King's College

Description: Discussion of the role of genes has been plagued by linguistic uncertainty since their origin. At first the word 'gene' was little more than a place marker, a name for the presumed unit of inheritance. What is a gene? A gene is a difference maker. Yet geneticists also assumed that genes are trait makers. To this day, conflation between genes and mutations, between trait makers and difference makers, remains endemic. The meaning of the term has transformed over the course of the century, not to mention proliferated. The status of genes as trait makers has come under severe challenge, as has the status of genes as difference makers. It is that very confusion between the
two, and the place of that confusion in our understanding of human nature, of what is natural and what is unnatural, that will be explored in this talk.

Evelyn Fox Keller, one the world's leading philosophers of science and a pioneer in feminist theory, is the author of many books, including "Reflections on Gender and Science", "Secrets of Life, Secrets of Death", and "The Century of the Gene".