Abstract
In the face of documented difficulties in the public understanding of genetics, new metaphors have been suggested. The language of information coding and processing has become deeply entrenched in the public representation of genetics, and some critics have found fault in the “blueprint” metaphor, a variant of the dominant theme. They have offered the language of the “recipe” as a preferable metaphor. The metaphors of the blueprint and the recipe are compared in respect to their deterministic implications and other associations. The likelihood of the recipe metaphor framing cognition in more useful ways is called into question.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Condit, C. M. (1999). The materiality of coding: Rhetoric, genetics, and the matter of life. In J. Selzer & S. Crowley (Eds.), Rhetorical bodies: Toward a material rhetoric (pp. 326–256). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Condit, C. M. (1999b). The meanings of the gene: Public debates about human heredity. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Condit, C. M., & Williams, M. J. (1997). Audience responses to the discourse of medical genetics: Evidence against the critique of medicalization. Health Communication 9, 219–236.
Dawkins, M. S. (1999). Let them think cake. Nature, 402, 234–235.
Doyle, R. (1997). On beyond living: Rhetorical transformations of the life sciences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Ekwo, E. E., Seals, B. F., Kim, J-O, Williamson, R. A., & Hanson, J. W. (1985). Factors influencing maternal estimates of genetic risk. American Journal of Medical Genetics 20, 491–504.
Fox Keller, E. (1995). Refiguring life: Metaphors of twentieth-century biology. New York: Columbia University Press.
Gordon, J. (1997). John Stuart Mill and the "marketplace of ideas." Social Theory and Practice, 23, 235.
Harding, S. (1991). Whose science? whose knowledge? thinking from women's lives. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Harding, S. (1993). Rethinking standpoint epistemology: What is strong objectivity? In L. Alcoff & E. Potter (Eds.), Feminist epistemologies (pp. 49–82). New York: Routledge.
Hartsock, N. (1983). The feminist standpoint: Developing the ground for a specifically feminist historical materialism. In S. Harding & M. Hintikka (Eds.), Discovering reality (pp. 283–310). Dordrecht: Reidel.
Hayes, B. (1998, January-February). The invention of the genetic code. American Scientist, 8–14.
Highfield, R. (1999, December 15). Simple recipe for the creation of life itself: Scientists wrestle with the idea of building a new species from scratch. (London) Daily Telegraph, p. 16.
Hubbard, R., & Wald, E. (1993). Exploding the gene myth: How genetic information is produced and manipulated by scientists, physicians, employers, insurance companies, educators, and law enforcers. Boston: Beacon Press.
Ivie, R. L. (1987). Metaphor and the rhetorical invention of Cold War 'idealists.' Communication Monographs, 54, 165–82.
Jensen, J. V. (1977). British voices on the eve of the American revolution: Trapped by the family metaphor. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 63, 43–50.
Katz Rothman, B. (1998). Genetic maps and human imaginations: The limits of science in understanding who we are. New York: W.W. Norton.
Kay, L. E. (1995).Whowrote the book of life? Information and the transformation of molecular biology, 1945–55. Science in Context 8 (4), 609–634.
Kessler, S., & Levine, E. K. (1987). Psychological aspects of genetic counseling IV: The subjective assessment of probability. American Journal of Medical Genetics, 28, 361–370.
Lewin, B. (1990). Genes IV. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
Lippman, A. (1992). Led (astray) by genetic maps: The cartography of the human genome and health care. Social Science and Medicine 35, 1469–1476.
Lippman, A. (1993). Prenatal genetic testing and geneticization: Mother matters for all. Reproductive genetic testing: Impact upon women. Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy, 8(Suppl. 1), 175–188.
Mitchinson, W. (1997). "It's not society that's the problem: It's women's bodies": A historical view of medical treatment of women in intersections. In K. Petersen (Ed.), Women on law, medicine and technology (pp. 25–48). Ashgate Press: Dartmouth.
Nelkin, D. & Lindee, S. (1995). The DNA mystique: The gene as cultural icon. New York: W. H. Freeman.
Organic and mechanical metaphors in late eighteenth-century American political thought. (1997). Harvard Law Review, 11, 1832.
Osborn, M. (1967). Archetypal metaphor in rhetoric: The light-dark family. Quarterly Journal of Speech 53, 115–26.
Perry, S. (1983). Rhetorical functions of the infestation metaphor in Hitler's rhetoric. Central States Speech Journal, 34, 229–35.
Pollack, R. (1994). Signs of life: The language and meanings of DNA. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Rayner, J. (1984). Between meaning and event: An historical approach to political metaphors. Political Studies, 32, 537–550.
Rosner, M., & Johnson, T. R. (1995). Telling stories: Metaphors of the human genome project. Hypatia, 10, 104–29.
Rothman, A. J., & Kiviniemi, M. T. (1999). Treating people with information: An analysis and review of approaches to communicating health risk information. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 25, 44–51.
Schwartz, L. M., Woloshin, S., Black, W. C., & Welch, H. B. (1997). The role of numeracy in understanding the benefit of screening mammography. Annals of Internal Medicine, 127, 966–972.
Smith, D. (1987). The everyday world as problematic: A feminist sociology. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Weaver, R. F., & Hedrick, P.W. (1992). Genetics (2nd ed.). Dubuque, IA: Williams C. Brown Publishers
Zarefsky, D. (1986). President Johnson's war on poverty: Rhetoric and history. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Condit, C.M., Condit, D.M. Blueprints and Recipes: Gendered Metaphors for Genetic Medicine. Journal of Medical Humanities 22, 29–39 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026634010579
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026634010579