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Dr.  Oren Abeles, Assistant Professor,  Humanities, MTU

CRISPR's Figurative Arguments for a Biology

Biologists and popular science writers use a number of figurative devices to describe genetics, often referring to "maps," "blueprints," "codes," and "programs." While such figurative devices might seem "merely" rhetorical, they actually do a lot of argumentative work, affecting the ways biological discoveries are used, funded, and taught. The recent proliferation of public and professional discourse about CRISPR gene "editing" technologies is a good example of such figurative rhetoric in action. This presentation considers the ways CRISPR is described in scientific discourse and how such discourse determines CRISPR's broader significance for biology.