Genetic information as part of the “Great Chain of Being”

Abstract

The article investigates discourse traditions of key-metaphors in popular accounts of genetics, such as those of genes or cells as selfish replicators, or of selection as a self-propelling agent or prime mover of evolution. Such agentive metaphors recall folk theories of heredity in terms of blood relations and blood lineage, which informed racist Nazi ideology in the 20th century but which can be traced back further to the theory of blood as one of the four “humours” in pre-modern thought. It is argued that, like the “blood myth” of heredity, the agentive metaphors of modern popular genetics have their origins in the ancient theory tradition of the “Great Chain of Being”, which helped to shape Western philosophy and which has been found by cognitive researchers to be still present today in the form of idioms and public language use.