The Meaning of the Gene.

Celeste Michelle Condit. University of Wisconsin Press, Maddison, WI. 1999. Pp. 325. Price $19.95, paperback. ISBN 0 299 16364 4.

At the cross-roads of two centuries we are being presented with the first draft of the human genome. This is an era of genetic choice and the challenge will become more pressing for all of us as technology and scientific understanding progress, even though we do not yet know how many genes we have or exactly where each gene begins and ends. In The Meaning of the Gene, Celeste Condit clearly shows the development beyond a focus on heredity to a more wide-ranging and complex understanding that involves individuals, families, races, patients, social structures and the environment.

The works of scholars in genetics, sciences and history are not the source of the author’s examination of how the meanings of gene evolved in the United States in the 20th Century. The analyses focus on the public voice expressed during 1900 to 1995; in newspapers, magazines, the Congressional Record, television news and documentaries. For technical and methodological reasons, the magazine source predominates, but it does not eliminate the other sources. Using quantitative methodologies and critical interpretation, the author segments the 20th Century into four major categories, or rhetorical formations, that represent the change processes in the way genetics are understood. The methods are carefully detailed in Appendices 1–3, with a clear recognition of the statistical and other limitations of the tools used.

The classical era of Eugenics was 1900–1935, in which the dominant metaphor was that of cattle-breeding. The mid-1930s to the mid-1950s was the era of Family Genetics, in which the dominant model was the gene controlling our human characteristics. The age of Experimental Genetics, 1957–1976, is heralded by Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA in 1953. This era shows a more subtle and flexible understanding of the interaction between heredity and environment. The last quarter of the 20th Century was the era of Medical Genetics, in which the vision has extended from individual genes to the genome. There is less concern in this era about heredity and more vigorous debate about personal health options, gene–environment interactions, social and ethical issues, along with patenting rights and surrendering control to commercial enterprises. The themes of perfectionism, determinism and discrimination are examined in each time period and are well integrated with many other themes in the challenging final chapter, ‘Conclusions and Speculations’.

Although limited to a US perspective, including references to the Cold War presentation of Russian resistance to genetic research as another sign of Western superiority, this book is a valuable contribution to a wider understanding of our humanity. My training as a scientist and physician does not include familiarity with the methods involved in this scholarship, so it is to the author’s credit that she presents it in an understandable and enriching approach.

We are left with the clear challenge that we need to understand the costs and benefits of genetic choice, that only by an awareness and understanding of the range of meanings can we ‘promote those conceptions of the gene that best represent the complexity and the positive potentials of the human condition, both biological and social’.