Since Kepler has brought up the subject of boundaries between science and philosophy, I'd like to follow up by suggesting that the boarder between science and every other cultural activity is mediated by language and this creates a boarder that is extremely porous.

This does not necessarily mean that science is just language. After all its main activity hinges on the repeatability of experiments that must be empirically verified. Thus scientific practice is not a solipsistic trade. However, what we take away from the observations of experiments in the results that are interpreted are subject to the constraints of language and cultural bias.

In the following passage the reviewer of Evelyn Fox Keller The Century of the Gene considers the way Keller deconstructs the gene as being a discrete physical entity.

First because the gene is embedded in a complex system of other physical processes that are critical to its operations and the information it transfers and secondly because the dna in genes has been constructed in our culture to impart to it the privileged position (almost omnipotent) of the "master molecule".

Rather than refer to genes as discrete entities she refers to "gene talk" of the discourse of genes:

In The Century of the Gene (cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000) Keller becomes more focused on the history of genetics, embryology (or developmental biology) and molecular biology. The subfield of biology that we know as genetics originated at the beginning of the twentieth century. The title Keller chose for this book suggests the question, if the twentieth century was the century of the gene of what is the twenty-first century?

Keller traces the history of genetics with a particular focus on the uses of the term gene. chapter one, “The life of a Powerful Word,” describes how when the term gene was first proposed it was a purely hypothetical entity, needed as a way to pursue an understanding of heredity. It was readily acknowledged to have no known basis in material reality. Keller calls the “discourse of gene action” the “way of talking that at least tacitly granted to genes the power to act, even in the absence of any information about how they might act. This same way of talking endowed the gene with a most curious constellation of properties. At one and the same time, the gene was bestowed with the properties of materiality, agency, life, and mind.”

One needs to read Keller’s account of developments in molecular biology during the 90s and 90s to get a clear picture of what happened. When evidence was found that genes were not always actors, but acted upon, the possibility that causal agency might not be located entirely with the genome was raised. This challenge was met with the concept of “gene activation” and a powerful metaphor, the genetic program. Keller writes (with more than a hint of sarcasm), “genes may need to be activated, but other genes—regulator genes—were there to do the job.” This “put genes back in the driver’s
seat and traditional expectations of genetic control safely back on track.”

Since that time, the picture has become very much more complicated still. Keller argues that although the term gene no longer carries much in the way of biological meaning,gene talk will remain. Among the reasons given is that “gene talk is an undeniably powerful tool of persuasion, useful not only in promoting research agendas and securing funding but also (perhaps especially) in marketing the products of a rapidly expanding biotech industry.”

In the final paragraph she writes, “if the term gene has become a hindrance to the understanding of biologists, it has perhaps become even more of a hindrance to the understanding of lay reader...

article by Koresh