[Genetics: still a discipline?].
In the institutional sense of the term "discipline" (laboratories, societies, congresses, curricula, etc.), genetics remains a discipline. In the intellectual sense of the term (consensus on a definite array of concepts, methods and theoretical purposes), it is doubtful that genetics is still a discipline. At first, molecular biology seemed to have introduced an unequivocal structural (or molecular) definition of the gene: a definite sequence of nucleotides that code for a protein. In fact, as it appears in retrospect, this was not the case. Even in 1961, when Jacob and Monod proposed their first model of genetic regulation in bacteria, there was no possibility of constructing a non equivocal concept of the gene. More recent developments in molecular genetics have made this situation worse. There is no possible definition of the gene as a general category. The reasons why biologists keep the word are pragmatic rather than theoretical: communication among scientists, economic interests and ideology.
Université Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne, Institut d'histoire et de philosophie des sciences et des techniques, 17, rue de la Sorbonne, 75006 Paris, France. gayon@noos.fr
Jean
J
Gayon
D005826:Genetics, Medical / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans