Taiwan Aborigines’ Genes as Black Boxes

A number of philosophers of science have called genes a type of black box. What this means is that, when a gene is simply considered as a fact, it is a closed  black  box  because  the  scientific  networks  involved  in  making  this  knowledge are forgotten. Why? Because the credibility and authority of science mean that it is no longer necessary to remember (Latour 1987). I worked as an English language teacher in Taiwan from 1992 to 2001, and I consider this small island nation a good place to learn about how genetics research creates, and also fails to create, such black boxes.

from Living Dead in the Pacific (2014)