Popular metaphors of biosciences: Bridges over time?

Configurations

Volumn 16, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 11-32

  Hellsten, Iina ^a  

^a VU UNIVERSITY AMSTERDAM   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 68149178243     PISSN: 10631801     EISSN: 10806520     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/con.0.0048     Document Type: Article

References (75)

1. The term was coined by James Watt at the end of the eighteenth century to make engine power more understandable. At that time, of course, the metaphor was innovative.
2. For more on computer icons as metaphors, see Marianne van den Boomen's essay, "Interfacing by Iconic Metaphors," in this special issue of Configurations.
3. Defining metaphor as a "mapping" between the source (such as harvest) and the target domain (e.g., stem-cell research) is widely share in metaphor research. See Max Black, Models and Metaphors (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1962);
4. Ivor Armstrong Richards, "The Philosophy of Rhetoric," in Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor, ed. Mark Johnson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), pp. 48-62;
5. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
6. Iina Hellsten, "Opening the Book of Life: Politics of Metaphors and the Human Genome," in The Politics of Public Issues, eds. Ullamaija Kivikuru and Tarja Savolainen (Helsinki: University of Helsinki, Department of Communication Publications 5, 2001), pp.179-194;
7. Brigitte Nerlich and Iina Hellsten, "Genomics: Shifts in the Metaphorical Landscape between 2001 and 2003," New Genetics and Society 23:3 (2004): 255-268;
8. Iina Hellsten, " From Sequencing to Annotating: Extending the Metaphor of the Book of Life from Genetics to Genomics," in New Genetics and Society 24:3 (2005): 283-297;
9. Iina Hellsten and Brigitte Nerlich, "Genetics and Genomics: The Politics and Ethics of Metaphorical Framing," in Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology, eds. Massimiano Bucchi and Brian Trench (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2008).
10. Iina Hellsten, "Dolly: Scientific Breakthrough or Frankenstein's Monster? Journalistic and Scientific Metaphor of Cloning," Metaphor and Symbol 15:4 (2000): 213-221.
11. Loet Leydesdorff and Iina Hellsten, "Metaphors and Diaphors in Science Communication: Mapping the Case of Stem-Cell Research," Science Communication 27:1 (2005): 64-99.
12. Black, Models and Metaphors (above, n. 3); Richards, "Philosophy of Rhetoric" (above, n. 3);
13. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (above, n. 3).
14. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (above, n. 3).
15. James Bono, "Science, Discourse and Literature: The Role/Rule of Metaphor in Science," in Literature and Science: Theory and Practice, ed. Stuart Peterfreund (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990), pp. 59-89;
16. Esa Valiverronen, "Biodiversity and the Power of Metaphor in Environmental Issues," Science Studies 11:1 (1998): 19-34;
17. Sabine Maasen and Peter Weingart, Metaphors and the Dynamics of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 2000).
18. Mary Hesse, "The Explanatory Function of Metaphor," in Logic, Methodology and Philosophy in Science, ed. Yehoshua Bar-Hillel (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing, 1970), pp. 249-259.
19. Note that my aim here is not to give a comprehensive review of previous research on metaphors and time, but to outline some of the main themes of research relevant for my argument.
20. Gustav Stern, Meaning and Change of Meaning (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1931).
21. Jost Trier, Der deutsche Wortschatz im Sinnbezirk des Verstandes. (Heidelberg, 1931) in Alfio Massimiliano Gliozzo, "Semantic Domains and Linguistic Theory" in Proceedings of the LREC 2006 workshop "Toward Computational Models of Literary Analysis", Genova, Italy, 2006.
22. Lera Boroditsky, "Metaphoric Structuring: Understanding Time through Spatial Metaphors," Cognition 75 (2000): 1-28.
23. Vyvyan Evans, "The Meaning of Time: Polysemy, the Lexicon and Conceptual Structure," Journal of Linguistics 41 (2005): 33-75.
24. Reinhardt Koselleck, "Crisis," Journal of the History of Ideas 67:2 (2006): 357-400.
25. Sabine Maasen and Peter Weingart, Metaphors and the Dynamics of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 2000).
26. Sally Wyatt, "Talking about the Future: Metaphors of the Internet," in Contested Futures: A Sociology of Prospective Techno-Science, eds. Nik Brown, Brian Rappert, and Andrew Webster (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 109-128;
27. Harro van Lente, "Forceful Futures: From Promise to Requirement," in Contested Futures.
28. Andreas Lösch, "Anticipating the Futures of Nanotechnology: Visionary Images as Means of Communication," Technology Analysis and Strategic Management 18:3/4 (2006): 393-409.
29. For more details, see Iina Hellsten, The Politics of Metaphor: Biodiversity and Biotechnology in the Media, (Acta Universitatis Tamperensis; 876, Tampere University Press, Tampere, 2002), pp. 1-3, 133-135.
30. Alice Dreger, "Metaphors of Morality in the Human Genome Project," in Controlling Our Destinies: Historical, Philosophical, Ethical, and Theological Perspectives on the Human Genome Project, ed. Phillip Reid Sloan (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000).
31. Kenneth Burke, On Symbols and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
32. Hesse, "Explanatory Function of Metaphor" (above, n. 10).
33. Hellsten, Politics of Metaphor (above, n. 20).
34. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (above, n. 3).
35. Joerg Zinken, Iina Hellsten, and Brigitte Nerlich, "Discourse Metaphors," in Body, Language and Mind, vol. 2: Interrelations between Biology, Linguistics and Culture, eds. Roslyn Frank, Renee Dirven, Tom Ziemke, and J. Jordan Zlatev (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007);
36. Joerg Zinken, Iina Hellsten, and Brigitte Nerlich, "What Is 'Cultural' about Conceptual Metaphors?" International Journal of Communication 13:1/2 (2003): 5-29.
37. Stephen Hilgartner, "The Human Genome Project," in The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, eds. Sheila Jasanoff et al. (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1994), pp. 302-314.
38. See, for example, Celeste Condit, The Meanings of the Gene: Public Debates about Human Heredity (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001);
39. Lily E. Kay, Who Wrote the Book of Life? A History of the Genetic Code (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000);
40. Evelyn Fox Keller, The Century of the Gene (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000).
41. Bill Clinton, president of the United States, held a press briefing at the White House flanked by the leaders of the two (competing) U.S. human genome projects, Drs. Craig Venter and Francis Collins. They were joined via satellite link from London by Tony Blair, the prime minister of Britain.
42. White House Briefing Room, "President Clinton Announces the Completion of the First Survey of the Entire Human Genome: Hails Public and Private Efforts Leading to This Historic Achievement." 2000. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human-Genome/project/clinton1.shtml (emphasis added).
43. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (above, n. 3).
44. Brigitte Nerlich and Kerry Kidd, "Introduction to Special Issue on 'The New Genetics: Linguistic and Literary Metaphors and the Social Construction of the Genome,'" New Genetics and Society 24:3 (2005): 263-266.
45. National Human Genome Research Center, "International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium Announces 'Working Draft' of Human Genome." 2000. http://www.genome.gov/10001457 (emphasis added).
46. This press release is no longer available on the website of the Roslin Institute, but it kindly sent me the original version when I requested it (emphasis added).
47. Alex Gregory, Brigitte Nerlich, and Martin Doering, "Cloning Metaphors: How Imagination Repeats Itself in the Stem-Cell Debate" unpublished manuscript.
48. Adult stem cells from bone marrow are already used for the treatment of certain types of cancer such as lymphoma and blood cancers. This therapy is ethically less disputed, because it uses adult stem cells.
49. Audrey Chapman, Mark Frankel, and Michele Garfinkel, "Stem-Cell Research and Applications: Monitoring the Frontiers of Biomedical Research," American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Institute for Civil Society. 1999. http://www.aaas.org/spp/sfrl/projects/ stem/report.pdf.
50. The White House, "President Discusses Stem Cell Research." 2001. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20010809-2.html (emphasis added).
51. Hellsten and Nerlich, "Communicating Genetics and Genomics" (above, n. 4);
52. Hellsten, "Opening the Book of Life" (above, n. 4); Brigitte Nerlich, Robert Dingwall, and D. D. Clarke, "The Book of Life: How the Human Genome Project Was Revealed to the Public," Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 6:5 (2002): 445-469;
53. Brigitte Nerlich and Robert Dingwall, "Deciphering the Human Genome: The Semantic and Ideological Foundations of Genetic and Genomic Discourse," in Cognitive Models in Language and Thought: Ideology, Metaphors and Meanings, eds. Renee Dirven, Roslyn Frank, and M. Pütz (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003), pp. 395-428;
54. Nerlich and Hellsten, "Genomics" (above, n. 4).
55. Condit, Meanings of the Gene (above n. 28).
56. Kay, Who Wrote the Book of Life? (above, n. 28), p. 31.
57. Kay, Who Wrote the Book of Life? (above, n. 28).
58. José van Dijck, Imagenation: Popular Images of Genetics (New York: New York University Press, 1998), p. 123.
59. Iina Hellsten, "Selling the life sciences: Promises of a better future in biotechnology advertisements", Science as Culture 11:4(2002), 459-479
60. Condit, Meanings of the Gene (above n. 28).
61. Hellsten, "Dolly" (above, n. 5).
62. M. Wadman, "US Senators Urge Caution on Cloning Ban," Nature 386:6622 (1997): 204.
63. "Life, the Universe and Dolly," Sunday Times (London), 2 March 1997.
64. van den Boomen, "Interfacing by Iconic Metaphors" (above, n. 2).
65. Zinken, Hellsten, and Nerlich, "Discourse Metaphors" (above, n. 26).
66. Jon Turney, "The Sociable Gene," European Molecular Biology Organization Report 6:9 (2005): 808-810.
67. Niklas Luhmann, "The Autopoiesis of Social Systems," in Sociocybernetic Paradoxes, eds. R. Felix Geyer and Johanens van der Zouwen (London: Sage, 1986), pp. 172-192;
68. Niklas Luhmann "The Cognitive Program of Constructivism and a Reality That Remains Unknown," in Self-Organization: Portrait of a Scientific Revolution, eds. Wolfgang Krohn, Guenter Kueppers, and Helga Nowotny (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990), pp. 64-85;
69. Niklas Luhmann, The Reality of the Mass Media (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000).
70. Note that the concept of "power" as a code is different from the conception of "power" otherwise implied in this study. Power as a code refers to the functional aspect in a political system, whereas Foucault (1980) analyses the micro-power that is constantly reproduced in discourses. Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972-77. (New York: Pantheon, 1980).
71. Loet Leydesdorff and Peter van den Besselaar, "Competing Technologies: Disturbance, Selection, and the Possibilities of Lock-in," in Computing Anticipatory Systems, ed. Daniel M. Dubois (Liège, Belguim: CHAOS Institute/University of Liège, 1997), pp. 60-64.
72. Herbert Simon, "The Organization of Complex Systems," in Hierarchy Theory: The Challenge of Complex Systems, ed. Howard H. Pattee (New York: George Braziller, 1973), pp. 1-27.
73. Loet Leydesdorff, Sociological Theory of Communication: The Self-Organization of the Knowledge-based Society (Parkland, Fla.: Universal Publishers/uPublish.com, 2001). http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff.htm.
74. Van Dijck, Imagenation (above, n. 42).
75. Ibid., p. 198.