For well over a century, temporality has played little more than a fleeting role in most of our biological sciences, and perhaps especially in genetics. For too long we have tried to build our understanding of genetic processes out of nouns, around entities. Perhaps it is time for a science constructed in and around the dynamics of biological processes, a genetics built not from nouns but from verbs. Perhaps the term gene itself can be revived for the twenty-first century by refiguring it as a verb. Would this be possible? Certainly our commitment to a noun-based science, to entity realism, runs deep, perhaps as deep as our understanding of science itself. Yet this article puts forward the suggestion that alternative linguistic traditions—rooted more in verbs than in nouns—might help us to develop a lexicon more suited to the dynamic interactivity of living systems to which current research in systems biology introduces us.
Skip Nav Destination
Close
Article navigation
1 September 2017
Research Article|
September 01 2017
Globalization, Scientific Lexicons, and the Future of Biology
Evelyn Fox Keller
Evelyn Fox Keller
Program in Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
e-mail: efkeller@mit.edu
Search for other works by this author on:
East Asian Science, Technology and Society (2017) 11 (3): 373–382.
Citation
Evelyn Fox Keller; Globalization, Scientific Lexicons, and the Future of Biology. East Asian Science, Technology and Society 1 September 2017; 11 (3): 373–382. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/18752160-4148940
Download citation file:
Close
Advertisement
107
Views
0
Citations