Conference Review
Policy, groups and populations in a genomic era: perspectives from philosophy and the social
sciences
17th and 18th April 2009
This conference, held on 17th
and 18th April 2009, started from the observation that many applications of
human genomics will involve large-scale population stratification, even if the
sense that genomic information is individual information remains potent.
However, commentary by
philosophers and social scientists on the issues thrown up by human genomics
has often centred on individuals, ignoring broader social groupings. The
conference’s aim, then, was to consider the issues, including policy issues,
that arise in encounters between public health and medical interventions and
the information, technology and interventions characteristic of genomics.
Eleven speakers, a mixture of estalished experts, health practitioners and younger scholars from around the UK, addressed these issues from a wide variety of philosophical and social scientific perspectives, ranging from the philosophy of science to political philosophy to social psychology and the sociology of knowledge. Some prominent themes included how the growth of direct-to-consumer genetic tests might upset traditional public health paradigms; how best to conceptualise the “translation” of research from more theoretical to more applied contexts; models of consent in the context of population level research; how genomic and non-genomic categories relate in the public understanding; and limits on permissible state action aimed at improving population health.
One of the most succesful features of the conference was the extremely high quality of discussion which emerged among the 45 participants. The conference was also particularly succesful in promoting a constructive and sympathetic inter-disciplinary dialogue, allowing philosophers a better insight into empirical complexities while providing social scientists with some aalternative models and hypotheses. Although the delegates continued to disagree on many points, there did seem to be general agreement that although genomic research may not deliver the kinds of extremely predictive, personalised knowledge once promoised by its proponents (and feared by its detratctors), the collection, analysis and use of data within genomic research and the knowledge generated through such research poses real policy questions and challenges standard models for conceptualising the relationship between individuals, the population sciences and public health policy.
The conference was organised by Adam Bostanci and Stephen John, both at the Hughes Hall Centre for Biomedical Science in Society. Support from the PHG Foundation and from CRASSH is gratefully acknowledged.
Adam Bostanci
