Emma Frow (on the left, after the talk) from ASU gave a terrific talk last night on the social, economic, and scientific ecology of synthetic biology, and how it is inflected by hacker culture and the maker movement. This rapidly changing terrain, in which biology is no longer given but made, raises vexed questions about intellectual property, scientific priority, and control over standards. My favorite line? In the Q&A Emma mentioned that some of the more anarchic MIT engineers have taken exception to the tyrannical rule of evolution in biology and coined the phrase No Mutation without Representation.
Next week Kamala Visweswaran, Professor of Ethnic Studies, is stepping in for the speaker who had to cancel, and will be telling us about how her training in Science Studies enabled her to make an important intervention in a textbook controversy in India. Yours truly will introduce the talk with a brief consideration of the case of Steve Fuller, the sociologist of science who testified for the Christian fundamentalists who wanted intelligent design taught in biology classes. The session will be pretty loose and conversational, and aims to interrogate the relationship between science studies and anti-science movements such as global warming denial and creationism.