In the Beginning was the Genome: Genomics and the Bi-textuality of Human Existence

Abstract

This paper addresses the cultural impact of genomics and the Human Genome Project (HGP) on human self-understanding. Notably, it addresses the claim made by Francis Collins (director of the HGP) that the genome is the language of God and the claim made by Max Delbrück (founding father of molecular life sciences research) that Aristotle must be credited with having predicted DNA as the soul that organises bio-matter. From a continental philosophical perspective I will argue that human existence results from a dialectical interaction between two types of texts: the language of molecular biology and the language of civilisation; the language of the genome and the language of our socio-cultural, symbolic ambiance. Whereas the former ultimately builds on the alphabets of genes and nucleotides, the latter is informed by primordial texts such as the Bible and the Quran. In applied bioethics deliberations on genomics, science is easily framed as liberating and progressive, religious world-views as conservative and restrictive (Zwart 1993). This paper focusses on the broader cultural ambiance of the debate to discern how the bi-textuality of human existence is currently undergoing a transition, as not only the physiological, but also the normative dimension is being reframed in biomolecular and terabyte terms.

Keywords:

• Human genomics
• Human Genome Project
• concept of the soul
• genomics and religion
• continental philosophy of science
• psychoanalysis of science
• dialectics of the molecular life sciences

Acknowledgement

This article is a revised version of the paper ‘The impact of the human genome on human self-understanding’, presented at the conference Islamic Ethics and the Genome Question, Research Centre for Islamic Legislation and Ethics (Doha, Qatar, 4 April 2017). I profited significantly from the comments and discussions which evolved during the conference.

ORCID

H.A.E. (Hub) Zwart http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8846-5213

Notes on contributor

Hub Zwart studied philosophy and psychology at Radboud University Nijmegen. In 2000 he became full professor of philosophy at the Faculty of Science. In 2004, he established the Centre for Society and Genomics (CSG) at this department, a national centre for research and societal interaction concerning the societal and philosophical implications of emerging research fields, funded by NGI, and acted as CSG’s scientific director. In 2005, he established the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (ISIS). He is also editor-in-Chief of the Springer journal Life Sciences, Society and Policy. He has published 10 books and 75 papers and supervised 20 Ph.D. students.

Notes

1 https://www.genome.gov/10001356

2 https://www.genome.gov/10001356

3 “Koranic revelation is considered to be a reception of the hyperoriginary text of the Other [which] had already been written” (Benslama 2009, p. 13).

4 http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/

5 https://www.academia.edu/5739248/Aristotles_physics

6 “The soul is the first principle (ἀρχή), the realisation (ἐντελέχεια) of that which exists potentially: its essential formula (λóγος)” (415b: 14–15).

7 Jung (1911/2001) introduced a distinction between two modes of thinking: namely imaginative and discursive thinking. Whereas the latter evolves on the basis of logic and the causality principle, the former relies on association. Historically speaking, Jung argues, discursive thinking is a fairly recent phenomenon. It was introduced by critical minds such as Socrates (the founding father of logic as a philosophical discipline) and further elaborated by Aristotle and scholasticism. Without this intellectual trend (the gradual conversion of the Western mind to discursive thinking), the emergence of modern science would have been unthinkable, Jung argues.