I agree with Daniel Callahan on a good number of issues; for one, that allowing an unchecked individualist ideology to determine the ethical course of biotechnology would likely be an irresponsible 'choice.' By extension, I would also agree that this ideology, which Callahan believes currently dominates the sphere of biotech ethics, "needs a strong competitive voice." Considering myself fully leftist, I'm a bit surprised that I fully agree with the claim that "liberal individualism is poorly equipped to help us.. develop the moral perspectives to deal with the.. complexity" resulting from recent and future advances in biomedical technology. I'm intrigued by Callahan's description of communitarianism: it very much appeals to my anarcho-syndicalist sensibilities. My concern lies in how Callahan's (quite idealistic) framework could be meaningfully implemented in a society as individualistic as ours. It's been my observation that, given the choice to participate or not to participate in a civic capacity, large segments of the population will choose not to participate. I'm talking about relatively simple democratic forms, like voting, attending meetings to discuss local politics. I realize that the phenomenon of civic disinterest (and its myriad causes) is not at all a simple matter, so I won't oversimplify. But as I read over the democratic participation section in "Individual Good and Common Good" (p. 504), I have to wonder: does Callahan really expect that "every member of the community" will want to "have a part in these discussions," even if they are "allowed to speak the language most congenial to their... values," with a topic as thorny, as 'academic' as bioethics? I don't doubt that these communitarianism guidelines could work within the confines of a smaller group- in fact, I imagine such a framework would shine in this context. Sadly, I think that liberal individualism is winning out over other "voices," such as communitarianism, because individualism's competitors are far more nuanced and complex (i.e. require a far higher investment of time, attention and care on the part of the participants) than that to which the American public is accustomed. The American system of representative government seems to me to be the closest large-scale model we have to what Callahan calls communitarianism. And Yankee Democracy doesn't even come close to inspiring the near-universal level of democratic participation that communitarianism would require.

Goddamn it if I don't sound like a stick in the mud. I want to get on board. I like Callahan's ideas and I agree with most of them. Question is, how to grab the pie from the sky and put it on the table?

Zwart's appeal: What, why, and why now?

On first reading Understanding the HGP, I was surprised that a scientist would do the research and write what amounts to a defense of using a decidedly nonscientific means- biographical literature- to convey scientific ideas. It seems possible that Zwart is rebutting a commonly-held grudge extant in his niche of the scientific community. I wonder, are indignant scientists writing essays damning the use biographical literature to convey science-knowledge? Does the substantive opposite of Understanding the HGP exist in some other science journal (or a previous issue of New Genetics)?

Though he dances around it, lurching, sometimes dramatically within the space of a paragraph, between praise and harsh criticism of biography in this context, his thesis becomes clear on p. 358: "(I)n comparison to the official channels and avenues of scholarly publication- and to a much greater extent than other contingent genres- biographies and autobiographies constitute an important complementary source of information for understanding scientific change." The rhetorical tone of the entire piece, with its careful examination and dissection of the criticisms of science biography, lead me to believe that Zwart is appealing to fellow scientists not only to accept biography as an important tool for communicating with the public and across disciplines, but to engage in more such writing.

Why now? Not having read anything more from Zwart than what he's written here, I can only posit guesses as to his motivations. Perhaps he believes that the public still misunderstands the issues, processes, and science behind genetics and genomics; that vital biographies are yet to be written. At any rate, the appeal is timely. This new "techno-scientific field" which caused a shift to a "new paradigm" in the approach of biological research, remains relatively shapeless. There is no shortage of words denoting the novelty and freshness of genomics in Understanding: "new", "emergence", "changing", "transforming", and "transformation" all appear several times as modifiers. The fact that the genomics wunderfirm deCODE Genetics applied for bankruptcy protection last November perfectly illustrates the volatility of the industry.