Psychiatric genetics has become 'Big Biology'. This may come as a surprising development to those familiar with its controversial history. From eugenic origins and contentious twin studies to a global network of laboratories employing high-throughput genetic and genomic technologies, biological research on psychiatric disorders has become an international, multidisciplinary assemblage of massive data resources. How did psychiatric genetics achieve this scale? How is it socially and epistemically organized? And how do scientists experience this politics of scale?
Psychiatric Genetics: From Hereditary Madness to Big Biology develops a sociological approach of exploring the origins of psychiatric genetics by tracing several distinct styles of scientific reasoning that coalesced at the beginning of the twentieth century. These styles of reasoning reveal, among other things, a range of practices that maintain an extraordinary stability in the face of radical criticism, internal tensions and scientific disappointments.
The book draws on a variety of methods and materials to explore these claims. Combining genealogical analysis of historical literature, rhetorical analysis of scientific review articles, interviews with scientists, ethnographic observations of laboratory practices and international conferences, this book offers a comprehensive and detailed exploration of both local and global changes in the field of psychiatric genetics.
About the Author: Michael Arribas-Ayllon is a senior lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. His research interests are in the sociology of genetic knowledge, histories of biomedicine, applications of genetic testing, medical communication and professional decision-making.
Andrew Bartlett is a sociologist working at the University of York and the University of Sheffield. He has a long-standing interest in the sociology of 'Big Biology' and has written papers on a range of topics in the sociology of science, including the interdisciplinarity of bioinformatics, the organization and publics of psychiatric genetics, and social issues with regard to genome editing.
Jamie Lewis is a lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. His research interests coalesce around the sociology of science and technology studies (STS), public understanding of science (PUS) and medical sociology. He has published papers on bioinformatics, psychiatric genetics, stem cell research and public engagement.
