Civil Society

Civil society typically refers to nonprofit advocacy organizations, sometimes called nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), that are political actors separate from government and private enterprises. For many important social issues, there are dense networks of civil society institutions. In general, they play an important role in holding governments accountable, countering the power of corporations, and contributing to democratic governance. Discussions of the social consequences of human biotechnologies are incomplete without the inclusion of civil society perspectives – for example, from reproductive, disability, LGBTQI, racial, and environmental justice movements – because of the potential for these technologies to exacerbate existing inequalities and create new ones.


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How do you stop a mad scientist?

We’ve been doing it in fiction for centuries. Doctor Faustus was carried off to hell. Pneumonia and an Arctic ice flow ended Victor FrankensteinDoctor Moreau’s own creations ultimately did him...

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California is being sued over its DNA collection practices, and the only thing that’s surprising is how long it took. In 2004, state voters passed Proposition 69, which requires authorities to collect DNA from anyone arrested for a felony. The...

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Advocates of science are in a bad place right now. Some days, in this Second Year of Trump, scientism—a blanket...

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This week, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts announced that geneticists had analyzed her DNA and proved her longstanding claim that...

Illustration of a child looking directly forward to a double helix oriented vertically. A  glimmer of light appears between the child and the DNA.

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Human hands hold up a crystal ball to the sky, reflecting the blue sky with clouds and city buildings.

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Landscape photo of a corn field, with blue sky in the background.

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A young baby with a soother in their mouth, stares at the camera as they grasp the window that displays their reflection

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Separate black and white portraits juxtaposing Lewis Terman and David Starr Jordan.

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A teddy bear is turned on its side, on the floor of a darkened room.

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A person faces a maze on the wall and uses their fingers to trace a path within the maze.

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Illustrated representation of a double helix, titled on its side so that it goes from the upper right of the photo to the bottom left.

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