The DNA Mystique: The Gene as a Cultural Icon

10. The Supergene

he newest applications of DNA are marketed directly to consumers, often in ways that reflect social anxieties. Advertising on the Internet and requiring only that buyers send in a mouth swab, DNA companies exploit cultural concerns about race, disability, intelligence, behavior, and the quality of future generations. They promote the idea that future generations can be improved through the manipulation of DNA, appealing to a wide range of interests. Indeed, the commercial and eugenic values informing the contemporary consumer uses of DNA are likely to shape future applications of genomic science. When entrepreneurs promise consumers that they can 10 The Supergene T 192 solve their problems of identity, relationships, community, and rights, they are not just selling DNA technologies or tests. They are selling services embedded in a packet of values and expectations. The Gene Tree DNA Testing Center, for example , promises to provide technical proof of Native American ancestry for $245, with free standard overnight shipping included.1 Because Native Americans were subject to profound injustice in the course of American history, they now qualify for compensatory benefits on the basis of proven racial identity. Similarly, http://africanancestry.com/ promises to reveal tribal affiliation, and Ancestry by DNA proposes that consumers can “just learn the facts” about their ancestry.2 Family Tree DNA, “America’s first genealogy driven DNA testing service,” will search for almost any “racial” marker— including markers of “European” origins and markers supposedly associated with the Kohanim, the chosen few in the Ancient Temple who led services and enjoyed high status in Jewish culture.3 Such commercial enterprises reinforce stereotypes of racial difference and seem to provide technical evidence of the reality of race. Just at the moment when racialized categories are coming under sustained technical attack by evolutionary biologists and biological anthropologists , these services are sustaining the public expectation that race is real, important, and written in the genes.4 Newer applications of DNA also facilitate a surveillance state. In the criminal justice system, the use of DNA has expanded as a means to convict or exclude people accused of crimes. This growing reliance on DNA persists despite a rising rate of wrongful convictions resulting from flawed interpretations or flawed tests. The number and size of DNA databases are growing: all members of the Armed Forces are expected to provide their DNA for storage;5 released prisoners in most states must provide DNA samples; and hospitals collect , store, and sometimes sell DNA from all newborns and patients.6 In a climate of increasing concerns about terrorism , immigration, and identity, the Bush administration has been pushing for the creation of larger and more broadly linked DNA databases. Attorney General John Ashcroft has announced plans to commit $1 billion in federal funds to T H E S U P E R G E N E 193 expand DNA testing in the criminal justice system.7 As DNA databases grow in importance and DNA becomes an important surveillance tool, popular proposals suggest that every person should have DNA in fully searchable, fully linked databases . The political and social need to control human behavior has been a key force underlying research in the social sciences , but it has become the central goal of genetics as well. The social sciences focus on changing the environment to improve behavior, while genetics redefines behavior in biological terms. From either perspective, the expectation is that scientific research and intervention can ultimately enhance the species to meet future social needs. But such interventions are increasingly understood to be biological, rather than social or political. Evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker’s work, widely cited and reviewed, suggests that all human behaviors are dictated by the forces of evolution and heredity. In The Blank Slate (2002) he proposes both that the existence of human nature is widely denied by “intellectuals” and that human behaviors are in fact almost wholly the result of natural selection and genetic endowment .8 These popular discussions of behavior and heredity are supplemented by a growing body of technical, scientific work focused on finding genes for complex human behaviors , including smoking, divorce, and risk taking. Genes for behavior seem to move readily from the specialized literature to mass culture, attracting significant public attention regardless of the legitimacy of the scientific results. Dean Hamer’s promotion of a gay gene in 1993 attracted wide public attention in the context of activists’ efforts to establish legal rights to benefits for partners and homosexual...