Salmon farming is a key industry in Norway, with firsthand value of more than 60 billion Norwegian crowns in 2017. The salmon industry is a driving force for biotechnological applications in the marine sector. The recent release of the Atlantic salmon reference genome offers new opportunities to solve major aquaculture bottlenecks that currently limit expansion of the industry. One major bottleneck is the genetic impact of escaped farmed salmon on wild populations. To solve this problem, the industry can use sterile salmon in production. As shown by Wargelius et al., sterile salmon can be made by preventing the formation of germ cells through genome editing using the CRISPR-Cas9 method. This approach solves problems of genetic introgression and precocious maturation. However, genome editing of animals, especially for human consumption, raises ethical as well as safety and legal questions. These social and ethical aspects can have tremendous impact in analyzing the final result of salmon farming (e.g., consumer acceptability of a fresh or frozen filet or similar salmon product) but also can be examined “upstream” by describing and assessing the research communities that promote and carry out the science that underpins the salmon industry. Who produces the scientific “facts” that govern the Norwegian aquaculture industry? How do these scientific communities work together? What are the societal impacts of this science? This article uses ethnographical observation and interviews to describe the state-of-the-art of CRISPR gene-editing procedures currently employed in the science and industry collaboration in Norway.

Researchers in the twenty-first century face a set of challenges unknown to researchers a half century ago—the need to justify the moral acceptability of their research methods through formal review processes. However, the role that moral constraints play in the development and demise of scientific theories has largely gone unappreciated. The rise of Institutional Review Boards (IRB) in the 1960s compounded the impact of moral constraints on scientific research and on the theories that develop out of such highly monitored research. To demonstrate the effects of moral constraints on scientific theory and research, this paper offers a history and analysis of the interaction between evolving moral standards and twentieth century emotion theory. Recommendations regarding IRB reform are also reviewed. The paper concludes by arguing that, while appropriate IRB reform is important, it cannot eliminate the need for careful reflection on the broader forces that shape scientific practice and understanding.

The plea of Corning and Hines to replace the concept of political development with that of political evolution addresses the conceptual obfuscation engendered by the plethora of definitions that pervade the literature on development. In a cogently argued paper they review the mainstream literature and briefly refer to alternative perspectives now wellentrenched in the mainstream of social science. They recast these perspectives through synthesis of abstract ideas and set forth the parameters in which a theory of political evolution might be utilized. Their push for interdisciplinary inquiry attempts to undermine ethnocentric and value-laden notions of political science. All these advances, however, merit critical assessment.

In 1980 the first recombinant genetic engineering experiments on humans were performed. These experiments sparked a major controversy, international in scope and potentially profound in its implications for genetic science. We develop four perspectives—substantive, network, organizational, and societal—from which science can be seen as a process having differing social implication and meaning. The research and controversy are discussed with attention to the conflicts and their resolutions from each perspective and among them. Taken together, the four perspectives are used as a single basis for understanding the social processes involved in this case study and the more general workings of science.

Biopolitics should be offered as a separate, independent course in the undergraduate curriculum, and graduate training should be offered within the rubric of political science. The primary reason that biopolitical materials should be covered in the undergraduate, liberal arts curriculum is that there is a need to train students to be vigilant, i.e., to have a critical capacity to confront ideas. Since so much of their lives will be intertwined with the political and so much of the political is better explained by considering biopolitical variables than by not considering them, students need exposure and academic coverage of biopolitical concepts and findings. Biopolitics represents only minor change in the general behavioralistic framework of explaining political phenomena, but represents the introduction into political science of some concepts and variables more widely used in the life sciences. Because biopolitical materials are high in quantity and because they are per se important and increase the explanatory power of traditional behavioralism, a biopolitics course belongs in the political science curriculum. The preparation of qualified teachers and researchers argues for graduate training in biopolitics. Without such graduate training in political science departments, the biopolitical inquiry will primarily be undertaken in disciplines other than political science.

Tom Wiegele will be sorely missed by all who knew him. No single person had more influence on my career than Tom. My first contact with him came in 1979 when he telephoned me to express his interest in my work in genetic technology and to invite me to serve as a discussant on a panel he was chairing. His sincere interest in my work was most welcome at that point and hastened my transition to biopolitical research.

In a time of nihilism, power determines political purpose-the power of a passion or of a pressure group. The American political community is suffering from nihilism. It is manifest in the erosion of our moral tradition and in the reduction of our political system to a weakly umpired struggle of interest groups for control of public policy. More frequently than not, policy represents simply the lowest common denominator of group demands, a compromise among the passions. The incipient erosion of civil liberties in the face of the long-term decay of the tradition signals the approach of the master passion.