Genomics for citizens. Providing the public with more and better knowledge to address the challenges of the twenty-first century.

Enlightenment, the german philosopher immanuel Kant (1724–1804) surmised, is Man’s emergence from self-imposed immaturity. From the ancient greeks and the philosophers of the roman republic, to the thinkers of the European Enlightenment and the great scientists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, philosophers and scientists have used science and reason to fight the superstitious belief that our lives are ruled by supernatural entities. reason and science have enlightened and empowered us to become the masters of our own fate. yet, it took a long time to get to where we are today. it has only been in the advanced democratic societies of the late twentieth century that the ideas of the Enlightenment have become fully integrated with our lives: we enjoy the fruits of research and expect to determine our own fate by regularly electing those we trust to represent us. it is ironic, then, that with the rejection of supernatural forces, we have witnessed a schism between biologists and social scientists over what determines the fate and the nature of humankind.