The paper discusses options for disease prevention in Public Health Genetics and attempts to assess the probability that coercive strategies might be chosen in public health policies that impose duties to undergo genetic testing. Given the social values, legal and political cultures and professional orientations in Western Europe and the United States, which provide the terms of reference for this assessment, it is unlikely that the preventive options which might emerge from human genetics in the future will trigger policies that force preventive behavior upon people, except in the cases where such enforcement is designed to protect third parties.
This article proposes that goal-oriented sciences contribute not only theory-based knowledge but also strategies of research to processes of social and technological innovation. The finalization model focused on disciplinary programmes, we focus on networks of innovation in which scientists become agents of change. Their role implies taking a variety of political, economic, legal and moral considerations into account, and their activities not only are addressed to problem solution but also generate new risks and public concerns. Still, science does not merge with political choice, economic interest or moral values in a seamless web. The article presents a systems theoretical restitution of the “internal-external” distinction in sociological terms. On this conceptual basis two case studies are presented - the development of waste management technologies and the introduction of genetically modified plants in agriculture - which illustrate both the diversity and the specificity of the functions of science as an agent of change.
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