Book Review: Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States by Sheila Jasanoff

TO THE casual observer, French farmers might seem to have little in common with Californian vine growers. They operate on different continents and in different political and, arguably, moral environments. But both groups exist in societies that have benefited from rapid advances in technology in the last century. And despite this, both are united in scepticism of the benefits that the biotechnology industry can offer.

Their concerns are a snapshot of a broader phenomenon – how societies from very different parts of the world are wrestling with the social, moral and economic issues generated by advances in biotechnology, and how these advances are, in turn, shaping the societies themselves. The result is the emergence of a new “biosociety”.

Designs on Nature by Sheila Jasanoff, professor of science and technology studies at Harvard University, is a bold attempt to map the contours of this new society and to show how it is being shaped by the life sciences. In a detailed study of Europe and the US, Jasanoff demonstrates how advances in biotechnology are tightly intertwined with political processes.

In situations of flux, however, it is as important to study the sources of change as it is to understand the political context in which it happens. In the case of biotechnology, the industry co-evolved with globalisation. The enhanced mobility of people, goods and ideas; better connectivity through communications technologies; and greater economic interdependence through global trading networks: each has played a part in influencing its spread.

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