Designer animals Brunk, Conrad G; Hartley, Sarah Annette
Designer animals,
c2012, 2012, 20120530, 2017, 2012-02-10, 2012-05-30
eBook, Book
Designer Animalsuses non-technical language to explore the science behind animal biotechnology and the ethical frameworks at play in its surrounding debates.
This article examines the ‘knowledge deficit’ model, which still persists in liberal, technological societies. It is based upon the assumption that expert forms of knowledge, both in the sciences and ...the humanities, provide a sufficient basis for deciding the most important public policy questions. In this view, public perceptions and beliefs that run counter to this expert knowledge provide unacceptable justifications for public policies. Instead, support of expert knowledge needs to be ‘built’ through education and public relations strategies. This view is challenged on the basis of basic democratic theory, using the debate about genetically modified maize in Mexico as an example. ‘Knowledge deficits’ also exist on the side of experts.
Selected by Choice as one of the outstanding publications for 1991. Are risk debates disputes between those who accept the findings of science and those who do not? Between good and bad science? Or ...is it possible that opposing assessments of risk, by scientific experts as well as ordinary citizens, reflect and are guided by dominant values held by the assessors? The following analysis of one of these debates supports the latter view. In it we suggest what those dominant values are, how they work within a risk assessment, and some implications of reconceiving risk debates as primarily debates about values.
The previous chapters in this collection reflect a wide variety of viewpoints that are brought to the table in the public discussion around the social, ethical, economic, and environmental values at ...stake in the development of animal biotechnology. Together they provide a reasonable ‘inventory’ of the values that are most salient for people in the social roles they play – as professionals, entrepreneurs, regulators, advocates, and concerned citizens.
Among the central concerns around animal biotechnology reflected in these chapters are those related to the proper governance of this new technology. These concerns were raised by the authors of the chapters in
La religion se trouve-t-elle désormais reléguée dans la sphère privée ? Les contributions rassemblées dans cet ouvrage montrent qu'il n'en est rien et que le discours de la modernité qui tente de ...minimiser l'effet des communautés de sens dans la sphère publique n'est pas aussi neutre qu'on pourrait d'abord le croire. Les auteurs témoignent ici de l'ambivalence de la société, qui oscille entre la reconnaissance de l'importance du religieux et la marginalisation de celui-ci. Dans les milieux de l'éducation, de la santé et à travers les politiques publiques, la « séparation entre la religion et l'État » reste une problématique complexe qui nécessite une compréhension en profondeur du phénomène religieux ainsi qu'une formation des professionnels et intervenants qui doivent faire face aux nouveaux défis posés par nos sociétés contemporaines sur cette question.
Introduction CONRAD G. BRUNK; SARAH HARTLEY; LESLIE C. RODGERS
Designer Animals,
05/2012
Book Chapter
Since the initial discovery of the double helix, genetic engineering by means of recombinant DNA technologies has inspired the imagination of those who envisioned its many potential benefits. It has ...inspired hope for a new ‘green revolution’ that would significantly increase agricultural productivity around the world, enhance the nutritional quality of food, allow the development of new therapeutics, and permit the control if not elimination of genetic diseases. In the minds of some, it promised also the improvement of the human species through the enhancement of genetic-based characteristics in future generations.
But it also sobered the imagination of those who
