Complexity and accountability: The witches' brew of psychiatric genetics
Complexity and accountability: The witches' brew of psychiatric genetics
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DOI：
10.1177/0306312710363511
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发表时间：
2010-08-01
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
Featherstone, Katie
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Arribas-Ayllon, Michael;Bartlett, Andrew;Featherstone, Katie
本文探讨了复杂性在常见精神疾病病因描述中的作用。虽然科学家证明了复杂遗传的潜在现实的发现——所谓的遗传和非遗传因素的“女巫酿造”——但我们认为“复杂性”也发挥着修辞作用。在我们对科学评论论文（1999-2008）的分析中，我们发现了一种相对稳定的问责类型，其中对复杂性的描述似乎通过纳入不同的、有时是相互竞争的方法论观点来抵消过去的失败。我们确定了两种时间策略：回顾性核算，重建精神遗传学的历史，处理最近的失败，引用早期的双胞胎研究作为常见精神疾病遗传性的证据；前瞻性会计，通过平衡方法的局限性和适度的乐观情绪来仔细重建预期。这些策略共同产生了一种从简单到复杂的叙述，掩盖了复杂性的矛盾本质。我们表明，科学评论论文中复杂性的修辞结构旨在弥合学科界限、整合新资源和重建期望，以证明基因发现和风险预测的延迟是合理的。
This paper examines the role of complexity in descriptions of the aetiology of common psychiatric disorders. While scientists attest to the discovery of an underlying reality of complex inheritance - the so-called 'witches' brew' of genetic and non-genetic factors - we argue that 'complexity' also performs rhetorical work. In our analysis of scientific review papers (1999-2008), we find a relatively stable genre of accountability in which descriptions of complexity appear to neutralize past failures by incorporating different and sometimes competing methodological perspectives. We identify two temporal strategies: retrospective accounting, which reconstructs a history of psychiatric genetics that deals with the recent failures, citing earlier twin studies as proof of the heritability of common psychiatric disorders; and prospective accounting, which engages in the careful reconstruction of expectations by balancing methodological limitations with moderated optimism. Together, these strategies produce a simple-to-complex narrative that belies the ambivalent nature of complexity. We show that the rhetorical construction of complexity in scientific review papers is oriented to bridging disciplinary boundaries, marshalling new resources and reconstructing expectations that justify delays in gene discovery and risk prediction.