The decision trap : genetic education and its social consequences / Silja Samerski ; with a preface by Barbara Katz Rothman ; english translation by Nancy Joyce.

Includes bibliographical references.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed August 8, 2015).

Cover; Contents; Front matter; Title page; Publisher information; Acknowledgment; Preface to the English Edition by Barbara Katz Rothman; Preface to the German Edition; Body matter; 1. Introduction: Gene as the Basis for Decision Making?; Distancing as a Research Approach; 2. Genetic Education; 2.1. The Gene; 2.2. Educational Campaigns; 2.2.1. Illiterate citizens? A Bremen congress; 2.2.2. The genetic literacy campaign; 2.2.3. Genetic counselling; 2.3. On the History of Genetic Counselling: Genetics as the Foundation of Sociopolitics.

2.3.1. The scientific management of hereditary dispositions2.3.2. More effective than coercion: Education and responsibility; 2.3.3. A new goal: The informed decision; 3. "Informed Choice": How Genetic Counsellors Empower their Clients to Attain Self-Determination; 3.1. The Initial Transformation of the Person: The Client as a Gene Carrier; 3.1.1. The genetic person; 3.1.2. The incomprehensible self; 3.1.3. Things in the body; 3.1.3.1. Visual representations as reproductions of reality; 3.1.3.2. Reification through language; 3.1.4. Hidden causes; 3.1.5. Meaningful information.

3.1.6. Internal agents3.1.7. Genes as an "illusion"; 3.2. Second Transformation of the Person: Clients as Risk Carriers; 3.2.1. A grave misunderstanding: Risk as diagnosis; 3.2.2. The client as a statistical construct; 3.2.3. The pathogenic effects of physician-attested risks; 3.2.4. Life in irrealis mood; 3.2.5. The genetic risk; 3.2.6. The genetic self; 3.3. The Compulsion to Risk Management: The Decision; 3.3.1. The imperative of the autonomous decision; 3.3.2. The option requiring a decision: The test; 3.3.3. Self-determined helplessness; 3.3.3.1. Obligatory risk management.

3.3.3.2. Mobilized helplessness3.3.4. Decision making: The paradox of personal risk assessment; 3.3.4.1. Amniocentesis: An arbitrary test?; 3.3.4.2. Prenatal decision making and economic rationality; 3.4. The Decision Trap; 4 .Conclusion: Disempowering Autonomy; 4.1. The Tyranny of Choice; 4.2. Autonomous Decision Making as Social Technology; 4.3. Conclusion: Now What?; Back matter; Transcription Conventions; Bibliography; Also available.

The Decision Trap questions a dogma of our time: the assumption that genetic education empowers citizens and increases their autonomy. It argues that professional instructions about genes, genetic risks, and genetic test options convey a genetic worldview which destroys self-confidence and makes clients dependent on genetic experts and technologies. Part one of the book introduces the reader to the idea of genetic education. It clarifies the notion of the ""gene"" as it is commonly understood ...

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