From carrots to frogs to sheep and finally to humans, the history of cloning is a fascinating study of the interplay between science and popular culture. Imagination and discovery provide mutual impetus in the evolving science and cultural phenomenon of cloning. Its history is a paradigm of science unfiction: What once belonged unequivocally on the pages of science fiction is now emerging in flesh and blood. Writers, movie producers, ethicists, and all manner of social commentators, no less than scientists, have (...) all participated in the creation of the human clone as an idea and as a biological entity. While the clone stands apart as having only one genetic parent, it truly is a brainchild of multifarious origins. (shrink)

Sociologists have challenged the discipline to account for and incorporate biological factors in their analyses. Heeding this call, this article asks how chimeras, a particularly puzzling biological organism, are being officially classified in the interrelated sites of endangered species preservation and the zoo. Based on a qualitative study of endeavors to clone endangered animals, I contend that biology alone cannot determine the classification of these interspecies organisms. Rather, categorizing chimeras requires metaphoric, schematic references to more familiar entities. Here culture and (...) biology are tools for classification, which has consequences for preservation practices and the materiality of endangered wildlife. Drawing on the sociology of culture, I show that positions on classification represent an intermediary space for interpreting the relationship between meaning and action in discourse elaboration. Building on the sociology of science and technology, I show the epistemological limitations of understanding the biological as an a priori factor. (shrink)