Conceptual Issues in the Dissemination and Reception of Genomics

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Project AbstractSES 0323496Paul Griffiths, University of Pittsburgh"Conceptual Issues in the Dissemination and Reception of Genomics"This proposal is intended as a US-UK collaboration under the scheme announced by the Science in Society Programme of the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Science and Technology Studies program and Societal Dimensions of Engineering, Science, and Technology program of NSF. The proposed research is designed to make use of the complementary bases of knowledge and skills that exist in the ESRC Center for Genomics in Society (EGenIS) at the University of Exeter, UK, and in the Representing Genes Project (RGP) in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. One of the three main strands of research at EGenIS is genosemantics, defined as the study of the terminology used in genomic science and how its meanings are transformed as the language of science is adopted by other areas of expertise and by the general public. EGenIS has a distinguished group of researchers with expertise in philosophical and sociological inquiry who are engaged in discourse analysis of material obtained in interviews and from relevant literature. The Representing Genes project is an empirical study of claims from the literature in the history and philosophy of molecular biology about conceptual diversity in the conceptualization of genetic elements and their action by contemporary biological researchers. The study takes the form of a web-based questionnaire targeted at researchers in molecular biology. The proposed collaboration is a study of the interaction between conceptualizations of genetic elements and the process by which the results of genomics are disseminated to wider audiences. It is expected that representations of the same findings based on different conceptualizations of genetic elements and their action will result in significantly different understandings on the part of those wider audiences. It is further expected that the process of dissemination will have systematic effects on which conceptualizations of genetic elements and their activities are used to communicate findings to wider audiences. The methodologies currently in use by the two groups will complement one another in different aspects of this study. Findings concerning the conceptualization of genetic elements and their action from the survey research of the Representing Genes project will be used to guide qualitative research into the dissemination of genomics. Discourse analysis will be used to enrich and further explore the survey findings concerning conceptual diversity. Techniques developed in the Representing Genes project will be used to actively manipulate variables identified by discourse analyses as relevant to the reception of genomic findings by wider audiences so as to test hypotheses about the effect of those variables. The proposed study would involve research experiences for undergraduates (REU), conducting literature based studies of the dissemination of specific results in genomics. The University Center for Social and Urban Research has agreed to provide physical space for these students in a "lab" setting where they can interact on a regular basis with the PI and Co-PI and with the HPS graduate students involved in the Representing genes Project and in this study.