Mitchellmemo23

Is it possible to have two hegemonic backdrops competing against one another? As there seems to be a “scientist” hegemonic backdrop and a “laity” hegemonic backdrop (something to add to the binaries)…although they intermix with each other (i.e. some scientists subscribe to the common ideas of the laity and vice versa).

For the scientists it is quite interesting, I see primarily what I have been taught scientists do when engaged in some “controversial” subject. The general discourse is the standard, “uninformed public who are hysterical because they lack the proper knowledge, but when they receive that knowledge they will be OK with our proposed research.” I have not heard one of the chief researchers involved say this, but the people around them say it a lot. Further however, many of the scientists do say, “where not doing anything THAT out of the ordinary (it is only a few hundred cells)”…which no doubt fuels the uninformed public discourse. Many also talk about the inevitability of the research, since humans cannot be used as model organisms (STS says nothing is inevitable). There is also talk that people will get over there discomfort (which goes with the uninformed public trope) and that any types of risk are very remote. All in all, these all seem like the standard scientist tropes.

For the public, one hegemonic idea seems to stick out for me. That is, that there is some innate discomfort with the research that is at this point ineffable, but ought to be taken seriously by the scientists. The hegemonic idea is then the fact that such a project is “more unnatural” (than previous projects in the biosciences) in some way and is therefore unacceptable.