Promethee Geneticien: Profits Techniques Et Usages Des Metaphores

Did Prometheus invent genetic engineering ? Was Prometheus the founding pioneer of biotechnologies ? Was he the champion in the field of human genome manipulation ?In Aeschylus’ tragedy, Prometheus boasts that he has transmitted civilizing techniques to mankind. As sign systems that need deciphering, these tekhnai (crafts) require considerable interpretive skills. It is thus not surprising that contemporary molecular biology should conceive of the processes of human genetics in terms of code to be deciphered, text to be read, or libraries to be consulted. Despite taking into account epigenetic factors and the external environment, however, such metaphors are being used in a determinist way.Couldn’t the Hellenist anthropologist’s off-centred perspective, supplemented by the linguist’s critical insight, allow for further exploration ? Like the practical arts offered to mortals by Prometheus, metaphors related to code and deciphering ultimately lead to procedures of an interpretive nature, in tune with the ambiguities unique to signification processes. The concept of a conjectural multi-determinism is thus preferable to the paradigm of scientistic determinism. Such a paradigm, derived from a hermenutics, would respect the role of chance unique to every human production process. Although cultural practices, life sciences are, in reality, social sciences.