Introduction: Sociological perspectives on the new genetics: an overview

We are at the dawn of a genetic age. The Human Genome Project, the largest biological research enterprise in history, promises to have our entire genetic structure mapped by 2001. Our media report new scientific claims of genes associated with diseases, conditions, behaviours or personality traits so regularly that it seems that we are being provided with a gene-of-theweek. Scientists have identified or claimed genes for cystic fibrosis, Huntington Disease, Fragile X syndrome, breast cancer, Alzheimer's disease, colon cancer, bipolar illness, obesity, homosexuality, alcoholism, 'novelty seeking', shyness, bed wetting; the list gets longer weekly. James Watson, so-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA and founding father of the Human Genome Project has declared, 'We used to think our fate was in the stars. Now we know, in large part, it is in our genes' (cited in Horgan 1993).