Enactments of Systems Biology

Abstract

“In considering the shift towards medical applications, in particular if notions such as the ‘digital patient’ are to be part of systems medicine, the crucial challenges are social, political and ethical. In biomedicine, issues of variability and validation have a social and ethical significance; while trusting a model in biology may have primarily epistemic importance, in biomedicine it has primarily pragmatic and ethical importance (in the sense of responsibility towards patients). Here, it is important not to limit ourselves to the language of impacts of science on society, but first and foremost to recognise that systems biology and systems medicine already have a socio-ethical character, and are already an expression of particular epistemic, ethical, and aesthetic values. How it plays out in healthcare, including how the patient is conceived and encouraged to identify her or himself is not just an external effect of the science, but already inscribed in it.”.