BEARING CROSSES - A HISTORIOGRAPHY OF GENETICS AND EMBRYOLOGY

As we construct the fusion of medical embryology and medical genetics, it is important to be aware of how the history of genetics has been w ritten to exclude embryology, This article looks at the rhetoric of ge netics and how that rhetoric fits a paradigm of supersessionism, Super sessionism is often seen in the history of religion when one sect clai ms superiority to the original sect from whence it emerged, Such super sessionism portrays embryology as a failed research program, one that genetics now has saved, In some instances, biblical references have al luded to the failed nature of embryology, Although this article does n ot criticize the data of genetics, it takes issue with the historiogra phy used by geneticists and seeks to show that the mergers between gen etics and embryology are those between two equal partners and not betw een an inferior and superior member. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.