The history of work on the genetic code (1953-70) is recounted here from the novel vantage point of the dawn of the information age and its impact on representations of nature, heredity, and society. The book details the historical process whereby the central biological problem of DNA-based protein synthesis came to be metaphorically represented as an information code and a writing technology, and consequently as a theistically resonant 'book of life'. Deploying analyses of language, cryptology, and information theory, the ...
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The history of work on the genetic code (1953-70) is recounted here from the novel vantage point of the dawn of the information age and its impact on representations of nature, heredity, and society. The book details the historical process whereby the central biological problem of DNA-based protein synthesis came to be metaphorically represented as an information code and a writing technology, and consequently as a theistically resonant 'book of life'. Deploying analyses of language, cryptology, and information theory, the author persuasively argues that in reality the genetic code is not a code, DNA is not a language, and the genome is not an information system, echoing objections voiced from the very beginning. Her historical reconstruction and analyses critique the new genomic biopower where genomic textuality has become a metaphor literalized, as human genome projects promise new levels of control over life through the meta-level of information.
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