I think you make an interesting point when you link genetic testing with the proliferation of browser cookies (I hope I’m using the right tech-jargon there). Both are forms of surveillance and tracking personal information. And you’re right there’s some irony that a public university making a public statement of its tracking will get such condemnation, but we think it’s okay when private interests are obliviously tracking information for their own gain (incidentally I just got engaged and every site I go to there’s a pop-up for some wedding planer service somehow).

But I think this comparison is not quite fair. I think genetic testing has a cultural significance that is altogether different, and much more contested than internet marketer going through our site preferences. There are skeptics out there, with good cause, who feel there’s a growing genetization of everyday life—where every human behavior and outcome is being linked back to some genetic predisposition. While the science of genomics has clearly evolved into a sophisticated field that interrogates the social and genetic underpinnigs of human life, there is always a danger that genetic testing of some sort can lead back to some essentialist stereotypes of groups and people. Berkeley is only looking at some pretty mundane outcomes related to how certain vitamins /compounds are digested. But I think some fear that this is just the first step of a broader cultural consumption of genetic research. Perhaps in the future people will be interested in what genes can tells us about test scores of students, their gpa, the courses they people take and so forth. Though the “science” of deciphering such complex processes is far from perfect at this stage, the fact that people think genes can explain these things can create some very slippery arguments about why certain people do well in school and others don’t. There’s a danger to seeing everything through a genetic lense particularly because measuring such things as the environment is tricky and contested stuff. Like that article that you cite mentions, there’s a whole new direct-to-consumer genetic market that somewhat takes advantage of this blind excitement toward genetic research.

That aside, these are good things for Berkeley students to critically talk about and perhaps the controversy that this round of dna-testing has created will be a good context for good discussions to emerge. We shouldn’t rebuke attempts to study “genes,” as they are clearly important in how outcomes unfold, but we should recognize that this is a murky bioethical terrain. When a prestigious university makes such a symbolic stance toward genetic research—that it is something that everybody should get involved in—there is clearly a need to have thoughtful discussion about the purpose of the project (what are legitimate and non-legitimate use of this data, what kind of claims can we make and not make). There is also the danger that such information could be used in a discriminatory way against people in the future if it is not closely protected, particularly in terms of health insurance. If the data could be used to reveal the onset of a condition, for instance, insurance companies may be interested in who should or should not be in their risk pools. Perhaps in this way your comparison is a bit clearer, though I still think the negative potentials for genetic testing are more severe I think.

Hi Arturo... good point! I do think the history of genetic research does place it as a thing apart from cookies or consumer data. I do however think that because of its history, we tend to frame genetic research as dangerous. We don't have a good language/story about tracking software/applications, so our worry about it is minimal.

Hi Jose,

I was thinking that this conversation related well to a podcast we did last year on genetics and social research. We interviewed a psychologist in MN who has done a lot of work in the area of twin studies, to reflect on the trend of sociologists working with biomarker data. He had some very interesting things to say on the matter...particularly in how he framed the need for "objective science" in this area. If you ever have chance to listen I think you would particularly find interesting how he negotiates the "political" vs the "science" of these projects (around min 17).

http://thesocietypages.org/officehours/2009/11/17/genes-behavior-and-science/

Nice talking to you on the "soc improv" last night.

Great post, the web surveillance tactics are starting to make the panopticon look very small scale indeed.

You may want to check out 23andme:: https://www.23andme.com/

The Sergey Brin/Google connection should be of interest, in terms of where technology is heading within the scope of the semantic web.

Wow...is that site for real! It kinda looks like a hoax site if I didn't know any better!