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Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA
Following in the fashion of Stephen Jay Gould and Peter Medawar, one of the world's leading scientists examines how "pure science" is in fact shaped and guided by social and political needs and assumptions.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
62 people are currently reading
2626 people want to read
About the author
Richard C. Lewontin
44 books98 followersRichard Charles "Dick" Lewontin is an American evolutionary biologist, mathematician, geneticist, and social commentator.
A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, he pioneered the application of techniques from molecular biology, such as gel electrophoresis, to questions of genetic variation and evolution.
In a pair of seminal 1966 papers co-authored with J. L. Hubby in the journal Genetics, Lewontin helped set the stage for the modern field of molecular evolution. In 1979 he and Stephen Jay Gould introduced the term "spandrel" into evolutionary theory. From 1973 to 1998, he held an endowed chair in zoology and biology at Harvard University, and from 2003 until his death in 2021 had been a research professor there.
A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, he pioneered the application of techniques from molecular biology, such as gel electrophoresis, to questions of genetic variation and evolution.
In a pair of seminal 1966 papers co-authored with J. L. Hubby in the journal Genetics, Lewontin helped set the stage for the modern field of molecular evolution. In 1979 he and Stephen Jay Gould introduced the term "spandrel" into evolutionary theory. From 1973 to 1998, he held an endowed chair in zoology and biology at Harvard University, and from 2003 until his death in 2021 had been a research professor there.
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June 19, 2010
This is the forth book based on the Massey Lectures that I’ve read. There has only been one that I didn’t really enjoy. All of the others have been utterly fascinating. This is particularly interesting – not least because for a couple of years now I’ve been meaning to finish reading Dawkins’ The Extended Phenotype and have struggled because I fundamentally disagree with its premise. Dawkins wrote The Extended Phenotype as a more strictly scientific defence of his idea that we are essentially large transport systems for our genes, that in as far as evolution is about replication that it is genes that replicate and that genes are essentially selfish (though, as he repeatedly points out – this doesn’t mean WE have to be). All of this is familiar territory from his The Selfish Gene. From this, and although Dawkins does not literally say this, it is not a great leap to saying that all of human culture is an extension of the needs of our selfish genes – or what he does literally say, “The doctrine of the extended phenotype is that the phenotypic effect of a gene (genetic replicator) is best seen as an effect upon the world at large, and only incidentally upon the individual organism—or any other vehicle—in which it happens to sit.”
To make this clear, although Dawkins says, “I agree with Pulliam and Dunford (1980) that cultural evolution 'owes its origin and its rules to genetic evolution, but it has a momentum all its own’” it seems to me an odd thing for him to say in a book called The Extended Phenotype. The main thesis of which does seem to be that much of what we see in the world is our genes extended out before us.
Lewontin and Dawkins come from opposite ends of biological spectrum and their arguments are bitter and acrimonious. Something both of them claim gives comfort to the real enemy – Creationism. I think they are both wrong here, as Creationist don’t even try to understand the arguments of either side and just congratulate themselves on the fact that scientist can disagree. Whereas to me the fact there is this argument is the best defence of the scientific method against mindlessness of faith that I can think of.
When this book was written the hype about the Human Genome Project was in full swing – Lewontin quotes dozens of books that came out at the time spruiking this most important scientific project since the Apollo mission. But being a sceptic when it comes to the extent that we are determined by our genes (the other book of his I have read is bluntly called Not In Our Genes) meant his being much less convinced that the supposed benefits of this project would automatically appear once the map had been produced.
The ‘promise’ of a mapped genome is that we will be able to cure a series of genetic disorders and illnesses once we compare its contours with those of a sick individual’s map. The logic of the argument runs a bit like this. We map the genetic code of a standardised human. We find people with genetic disorders. We compare their genes to those of the standardised human’s genes we have mapped. Any difference between the two is where the problem lies. Genes make proteins. So, when we work out which protein isn’t being made or is being improperly made due to the genetic stuff-up we can correct it and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
The problem is that this ‘simple’ model of how things will go papers over the cracks of the difficulties – and not just the practical difficulties, but also the deep theoretical problems this model raises.
Firstly, we have mapped the DNA of a kind of no man – a kind of standardised person. What we did not do was find the perfect human being and map their DNA – not only because such an individual does not exist, but also because such a concept simply doesn’t make sense. So, what do we have in our map of the human DNA? Well, this isn’t as easy a question to answer as it might seem. Let’s say you have a disease. We find the gene we think might be responsible for your disease and compare it with the mapped gene taken from the Genome Project. The idea is that the error will be immediately obvious, except when we have tried this the error isn’t at all obvious. The example given in the book is of people with haemophilia - that is, a disorder we know to have a genetic origin and one in which we can even identify the gene responsible. But we still have been unable to see what is wrong with the gene despite being readily able to compare ‘good’ and ‘bad’ genes. The problem seems to be that there are lots of ways these genes can be either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and it is not all that clear what makes one good and the other bad.
The other problem is that genes come in pairs. So you get one pair from mum and one from dad. Let’s say the one you get from mum is faulty – well, then there is a pretty good chance the one you got from dad will be just fine and all will be well with the world. Except, that the Genome project mapped one of this pair of genes. So, which one has been mapped? What are the chances that the gene on the standard map is a dysfunctional gene? Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? A question I guess that will only be answered after a very long time and many, many comparisons between well and unwell people.
Lewontin makes a very strong case that what get called genetic disorders are much more complicated than just problems with our genes and often ought to be called social disorders. This is mostly the case because it is very hard to tell what is genetic and what is environmental. In fact, Lewontin feels this distinction (the nature / nurture distinction) is overstated or rather a misstatement of the issues that are better looked at as social issues.
Organisms often literally make there own environment. This was one of the most interesting ideas in the book, and one at least superficially similar to that quoted from Dawkins above. What is the environment that organisms live in? This sounds like an all too obvious question, except it is not nearly as obvious as it seems. We don’t live in THE environment and not just because we have built houses and cities, but because our bodies produce their own environment. He gives the example of wind chill. We literally create our own environment around our bodies, a warm coat of moist air. But given a little wind this environment is blown away and it makes us feel uncomfortable. More than this he points out that two organisms living in the same ‘place’ do not live in the same ‘environment’. He gives the example of phoebes and thrushes that may live in the same place, but for one a stone is not part of its ‘environment’ as the existence of the stone is quite irrelevant to it – but to the other, which may use the stone to break open a snail’s shell, it definitely is part of its environment. Often books on genetics and evolution make a much more strict boundary between internal gene and external environment – it seems this boundary is anything but fixed and obvious.
Dawkins, in The Extended Phenotype, makes the somewhat disingenuous statement that, “Homosexuality is, of course, a problem for Darwinians only if there is a genetic component to the difference between homosexual and heterosexual individuals.” I think this is disingenuous because this is exactly the kind of example that is always thrown up in support of Sociobiology. Sociobiology rarely has a problem with declaring just about everything has a genetic foundation. This is made very clear from a quote Lewontin provides from Daniel Koshland in defending the Human Genome Project from claims the money would have been better spent on the homeless, “What these people don’t realise is that the homeless are impaired … Indeed, no group will benefit more from the application of human genetics.” I, for one, find the implications of this nonsense chilling. In my world we fought the Second World War to overcome such monstrous ideas, but admittedly, that probably is only true in my world. Our culture’s obsession with eugenics has been washed clean of its stink of death and now parades in fresh garb re-branded as evolutionary psychology or meme theory. I find the whole thing quite disturbing and admit to being unable to ignore the heredity of these ideas.
This is a short, powerful and fascinatingly interesting book. What he has to say about medicine’s rather meagre impact on our increased lifespan is worth the price of the book alone. We have been promised much by those who believe in the doctrine of DNA, we have spent many billions of public money that has gone into the pockets of many of those most likely to tout its benefits – but whether a mapped genome is capable of living up to such promises is something only time will tell. As ideology it has many problems. Ideologically, I prefer the biology offered by Lewontin, where we are the interplay of our genes and our environment in a dialectical relationship of mutual interconnection and change. We are social creatures and society operates on quite other rules than those that manifest from our genes. If the choice is between Lewontin’s view that society creates relations for humans that are inexplicable by our genes and Dawkins view that society is to a great extent the extension of our genes - not just of a multiplication of individuals, but of individual genes then I’m always going to be more drawn to Lewontin.
To make this clear, although Dawkins says, “I agree with Pulliam and Dunford (1980) that cultural evolution 'owes its origin and its rules to genetic evolution, but it has a momentum all its own’” it seems to me an odd thing for him to say in a book called The Extended Phenotype. The main thesis of which does seem to be that much of what we see in the world is our genes extended out before us.
Lewontin and Dawkins come from opposite ends of biological spectrum and their arguments are bitter and acrimonious. Something both of them claim gives comfort to the real enemy – Creationism. I think they are both wrong here, as Creationist don’t even try to understand the arguments of either side and just congratulate themselves on the fact that scientist can disagree. Whereas to me the fact there is this argument is the best defence of the scientific method against mindlessness of faith that I can think of.
When this book was written the hype about the Human Genome Project was in full swing – Lewontin quotes dozens of books that came out at the time spruiking this most important scientific project since the Apollo mission. But being a sceptic when it comes to the extent that we are determined by our genes (the other book of his I have read is bluntly called Not In Our Genes) meant his being much less convinced that the supposed benefits of this project would automatically appear once the map had been produced.
The ‘promise’ of a mapped genome is that we will be able to cure a series of genetic disorders and illnesses once we compare its contours with those of a sick individual’s map. The logic of the argument runs a bit like this. We map the genetic code of a standardised human. We find people with genetic disorders. We compare their genes to those of the standardised human’s genes we have mapped. Any difference between the two is where the problem lies. Genes make proteins. So, when we work out which protein isn’t being made or is being improperly made due to the genetic stuff-up we can correct it and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
The problem is that this ‘simple’ model of how things will go papers over the cracks of the difficulties – and not just the practical difficulties, but also the deep theoretical problems this model raises.
Firstly, we have mapped the DNA of a kind of no man – a kind of standardised person. What we did not do was find the perfect human being and map their DNA – not only because such an individual does not exist, but also because such a concept simply doesn’t make sense. So, what do we have in our map of the human DNA? Well, this isn’t as easy a question to answer as it might seem. Let’s say you have a disease. We find the gene we think might be responsible for your disease and compare it with the mapped gene taken from the Genome Project. The idea is that the error will be immediately obvious, except when we have tried this the error isn’t at all obvious. The example given in the book is of people with haemophilia - that is, a disorder we know to have a genetic origin and one in which we can even identify the gene responsible. But we still have been unable to see what is wrong with the gene despite being readily able to compare ‘good’ and ‘bad’ genes. The problem seems to be that there are lots of ways these genes can be either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and it is not all that clear what makes one good and the other bad.
The other problem is that genes come in pairs. So you get one pair from mum and one from dad. Let’s say the one you get from mum is faulty – well, then there is a pretty good chance the one you got from dad will be just fine and all will be well with the world. Except, that the Genome project mapped one of this pair of genes. So, which one has been mapped? What are the chances that the gene on the standard map is a dysfunctional gene? Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? A question I guess that will only be answered after a very long time and many, many comparisons between well and unwell people.
Lewontin makes a very strong case that what get called genetic disorders are much more complicated than just problems with our genes and often ought to be called social disorders. This is mostly the case because it is very hard to tell what is genetic and what is environmental. In fact, Lewontin feels this distinction (the nature / nurture distinction) is overstated or rather a misstatement of the issues that are better looked at as social issues.
Organisms often literally make there own environment. This was one of the most interesting ideas in the book, and one at least superficially similar to that quoted from Dawkins above. What is the environment that organisms live in? This sounds like an all too obvious question, except it is not nearly as obvious as it seems. We don’t live in THE environment and not just because we have built houses and cities, but because our bodies produce their own environment. He gives the example of wind chill. We literally create our own environment around our bodies, a warm coat of moist air. But given a little wind this environment is blown away and it makes us feel uncomfortable. More than this he points out that two organisms living in the same ‘place’ do not live in the same ‘environment’. He gives the example of phoebes and thrushes that may live in the same place, but for one a stone is not part of its ‘environment’ as the existence of the stone is quite irrelevant to it – but to the other, which may use the stone to break open a snail’s shell, it definitely is part of its environment. Often books on genetics and evolution make a much more strict boundary between internal gene and external environment – it seems this boundary is anything but fixed and obvious.
Dawkins, in The Extended Phenotype, makes the somewhat disingenuous statement that, “Homosexuality is, of course, a problem for Darwinians only if there is a genetic component to the difference between homosexual and heterosexual individuals.” I think this is disingenuous because this is exactly the kind of example that is always thrown up in support of Sociobiology. Sociobiology rarely has a problem with declaring just about everything has a genetic foundation. This is made very clear from a quote Lewontin provides from Daniel Koshland in defending the Human Genome Project from claims the money would have been better spent on the homeless, “What these people don’t realise is that the homeless are impaired … Indeed, no group will benefit more from the application of human genetics.” I, for one, find the implications of this nonsense chilling. In my world we fought the Second World War to overcome such monstrous ideas, but admittedly, that probably is only true in my world. Our culture’s obsession with eugenics has been washed clean of its stink of death and now parades in fresh garb re-branded as evolutionary psychology or meme theory. I find the whole thing quite disturbing and admit to being unable to ignore the heredity of these ideas.
This is a short, powerful and fascinatingly interesting book. What he has to say about medicine’s rather meagre impact on our increased lifespan is worth the price of the book alone. We have been promised much by those who believe in the doctrine of DNA, we have spent many billions of public money that has gone into the pockets of many of those most likely to tout its benefits – but whether a mapped genome is capable of living up to such promises is something only time will tell. As ideology it has many problems. Ideologically, I prefer the biology offered by Lewontin, where we are the interplay of our genes and our environment in a dialectical relationship of mutual interconnection and change. We are social creatures and society operates on quite other rules than those that manifest from our genes. If the choice is between Lewontin’s view that society creates relations for humans that are inexplicable by our genes and Dawkins view that society is to a great extent the extension of our genes - not just of a multiplication of individuals, but of individual genes then I’m always going to be more drawn to Lewontin.
December 4, 2019
نظرا لندرة المراجعات باللغة العربية لهذا الكتب سأكتب بها:
البروفيسور ريتشارد لوينتون ،عالم الأحياء التطورية من جامعة هارفارد، يطرح عبر كتابه هذا عددا من الجدليات العلمية التي تخفى على المتعلم ، وينقض نقدا لاذعا أسس العلم ويدعو للشك وعدم التسليم بكل ما ينطق به ما نسميهم "العلماء".
ويعري بعض أنشطة العلم التي تدعي العصمة واسكتشاف العالم بموضوعية ، فالعلم ليس إلا نشاطا اجتماعيا يخضع إلى كل ما تخضع له الأنشطة الأخرى من انحيازات وأطماع ويعقب ذلك بالعديد من الأمثلة مع النقد الرصين لها!
ويبني على ذلك دعوته إلى عدم التسليم بكل ما يقوله العلم وخاصة دوره في تبرير التفاوت بين الطبقات الاجتماعية واستخدامه كأداة للشرعنة الاقتصادية والسياسية!!!
فهذا الكتاب الذي هو سلسلة من المحاضرات التي القاها البروفيسور هي كما قال: "الشك هو دعوة للتفكير ،بينما السخرية هي دعوة للإحجام".
بالنسبة لي : كان هذا الكتاب نسفا للكثير من المسلَّمات !!
البروفيسور ريتشارد لوينتون ،عالم الأحياء التطورية من جامعة هارفارد، يطرح عبر كتابه هذا عددا من الجدليات العلمية التي تخفى على المتعلم ، وينقض نقدا لاذعا أسس العلم ويدعو للشك وعدم التسليم بكل ما ينطق به ما نسميهم "العلماء".
ويعري بعض أنشطة العلم التي تدعي العصمة واسكتشاف العالم بموضوعية ، فالعلم ليس إلا نشاطا اجتماعيا يخضع إلى كل ما تخضع له الأنشطة الأخرى من انحيازات وأطماع ويعقب ذلك بالعديد من الأمثلة مع النقد الرصين لها!
ويبني على ذلك دعوته إلى عدم التسليم بكل ما يقوله العلم وخاصة دوره في تبرير التفاوت بين الطبقات الاجتماعية واستخدامه كأداة للشرعنة الاقتصادية والسياسية!!!
فهذا الكتاب الذي هو سلسلة من المحاضرات التي القاها البروفيسور هي كما قال: "الشك هو دعوة للتفكير ،بينما السخرية هي دعوة للإحجام".
بالنسبة لي : كان هذا الكتاب نسفا للكثير من المسلَّمات !!
August 28, 2017
...
On the other hand, if one's message is that things are complicated, uncertain, and messy, that no simple rule or force will explain the past and predict the future of human existence, there are rather fewer ways to get that message across. Measured claims about the complexity of life and our ignorance of its determinants are not show biz.
Science is molded by society because it is a human productive activity that takes time and money, and so is guided by those forces in the world that have control over time and money. Science use commodities and is part of the process of commodity production.
On the other hand, if one's message is that things are complicated, uncertain, and messy, that no simple rule or force will explain the past and predict the future of human existence, there are rather fewer ways to get that message across. Measured claims about the complexity of life and our ignorance of its determinants are not show biz.
For an example of complicated and uncertain, take Lewontin's lecture "All the in the Genes" in which he states in regards to the nature-vs-nurture debate that (if I'm reading this correctly) both genetics and environment play a role in intellectual capacity and other unfixed characteristics of human individuals, but that it is impossible to assign a precise statistical weight to one or the other and that even if you take two genetically identical organisms and subject then to the same environmental factors while developing, they won't necessarily turn out the same. There is no connection whatsoever between the variation that can be ascribed to genetic differences as opposed to environmental differences and whether a chance in environment will affect performance and by how much. [page 29]
The vulgar error that confuses heritability and fixity has been, over the years, the single most powerful weapon that biological ideologues have had in legitimating a society of inequality. [page 37]
Science is molded by society because it is a human productive activity that takes time and money, and so is guided by those forces in the world that have control over time and money. Science use commodities and is part of the process of commodity production.
These institutions [agricultural experiment stations] might be expected to develop alternative methods since they are not concerned with profit and are working at public expense... A purely commercial interest has so successfully clothed itself in claims of pure science that those claims are now taught as scientific gospel.
January 10, 2009
This is a short book, written for a general audience. This has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it is very clearly written and organized, with lots of concrete examples. This makes it an ideal introduction for a reader who is not familiar with science studies. Lewontin presents science not as the objective, universal field we are taught as children to revere, but as a practical field that is inextricably tied to social and economic development.
On the other hand, however, if you have already been introduced to this way of thinking about science, have already been given the tools with which to question the assumption that science is non-ideological, then this book will not really add anything new to the discussion.
On the other hand, however, if you have already been introduced to this way of thinking about science, have already been given the tools with which to question the assumption that science is non-ideological, then this book will not really add anything new to the discussion.
March 13, 2016
An interesting look into how we abuse biology for ideological reasons, it's just clearly old (1993) - for example, the bulk of the book is an argument against a reductionist view of biology based on single genes, but we've since moved on to systems biology, synthetic biology etc. that try and view organisms as systems. In other areas he uses twin studies to argue against a gene-centric explanation of various human traits, but since 1993 numerous more (and bigger) studies using twins have been published that show a direct genetic link to various traits. Lewontin is very far in the "not by genes alone" corner, and many of the arguments he brings up have since become obsolete.
Sometimes however, he's bringing up arguments ten years too soon - he has arguments against Wilson et al.'s sociobiology that fit to the more modern evolutionary psychology, too:
Or against the "gay gene":
Or on the problems of the then just-proposed Human Genome Project:
We've only now started to move away from the "genome for everyone" to "personal genomics" where everyone's genome is sequenced and analyzed, instead of compared to one reference genome. Here he also describes the problem we're 23 years later facing with genome-wide association studies - we need to recruit a ton of people that show a "nice" variation in the trait, and even then all we get is risk alleles, not actual genetic causes. The more genes are involved, the muddier it gets.
It's most interesting when he draws out the ideology behind various biological theories - Darwin's theory of natural selection, for example, can be interpreted in the light of the Victorian image of human society ("What Darwin did was take early-nineteenth-century political economy and expand it to include all of natural economy.").
Similarly, the "modern entrepreneurial competitive hierarchical society" with "the priority of the individual over the collective" is reflected in reductionist "the gene did it" theories that are nowadays accepted by society, but less by science. In other words, ideology subtly influences scientific endeavors.
Perhaps I shouldn't make the error to discuss this book from the point of view of modern science, but maybe from the point of view of how modern society interprets science, because there the "only-gene"-centric view is still a common thing.
Just have a look at the weekly news - "fat gene found", "gene for colon cancer", "gene for gray hair" etc. pp. None of these genes need to cause these phenotypes, they may just under specific circumstances of the study appear more in individuals with that phenotype (there are various statistical technologies to minimize but not eliminate random influences, such as population history). It's still extremely hard to then find the actual A -> B, gene -> phenotype link. This is a problem since people are getting disillusioned about scientific progress - the news, politics, scientists tells them every week how much progress science makes, but they don't see the progress, they still die of the same old cancer.
Anyway, it's not a long read, but it hasn't aged well.
Sometimes however, he's bringing up arguments ten years too soon - he has arguments against Wilson et al.'s sociobiology that fit to the more modern evolutionary psychology, too:
When we combine individual selective advantage with the possibility of kin selection and reciprocal altruism, it is hard to imagine any human trait for which a plausible scenario for its selective advantage could not be invented. The real problem is to find out whether any of these stories is true. One must distinguish between plausible stories, things that might be true, and true stories, things that actually have happened. [...] At the very minimum, we might ask whether there is any evidence that such selective processes are going on at the present, but in fact no one has ever measured in any human population the actual reproductive advantage or disadvantage of any human behavior.
Or against the "gay gene":
First, the sociobiologist makes the assumption that homosexuals leave fewer offspring. This implies a description of human sexual behavior in which the world is divided between heterosexuals and homosexuals, one class that leaves offspring and the other that does not. This description, however, does not correspond to our knowledge of human sexuality. [...]
Or on the problems of the then just-proposed Human Genome Project:
And an average gene that is, say, 3,000 nucleotides long will differ between any two normal individuals by about 20 nucleotides. Who’s genome, then, is going to provide the sequence for the catalog for the normal person? [...] It would be necessary to look at a large population of normal and diseased people to see if one could find some common difference between them, but even this may not happen if the disease in question has a multiple genetic cause so that different people have the same disease for different reasons, even if all those reasons are a consequence of genetic changes.
We've only now started to move away from the "genome for everyone" to "personal genomics" where everyone's genome is sequenced and analyzed, instead of compared to one reference genome. Here he also describes the problem we're 23 years later facing with genome-wide association studies - we need to recruit a ton of people that show a "nice" variation in the trait, and even then all we get is risk alleles, not actual genetic causes. The more genes are involved, the muddier it gets.
It's most interesting when he draws out the ideology behind various biological theories - Darwin's theory of natural selection, for example, can be interpreted in the light of the Victorian image of human society ("What Darwin did was take early-nineteenth-century political economy and expand it to include all of natural economy.").
Similarly, the "modern entrepreneurial competitive hierarchical society" with "the priority of the individual over the collective" is reflected in reductionist "the gene did it" theories that are nowadays accepted by society, but less by science. In other words, ideology subtly influences scientific endeavors.
Perhaps I shouldn't make the error to discuss this book from the point of view of modern science, but maybe from the point of view of how modern society interprets science, because there the "only-gene"-centric view is still a common thing.
Just have a look at the weekly news - "fat gene found", "gene for colon cancer", "gene for gray hair" etc. pp. None of these genes need to cause these phenotypes, they may just under specific circumstances of the study appear more in individuals with that phenotype (there are various statistical technologies to minimize but not eliminate random influences, such as population history). It's still extremely hard to then find the actual A -> B, gene -> phenotype link. This is a problem since people are getting disillusioned about scientific progress - the news, politics, scientists tells them every week how much progress science makes, but they don't see the progress, they still die of the same old cancer.
Anyway, it's not a long read, but it hasn't aged well.
February 29, 2012
Lewontin is a leftist and he couldn’t be more obvious about it. When he unconvincingly accuses all science of being ideological, it seems like he is preparing the ground for and justifying the strong ideology behind his own writing. He refuses the extreme idea that genes are the source of all causation in the human sphere, only to replace them with bourgeoisie and capitalism! Yes, he takes particular delight in linking everything from reductionism as a scientific tool to the information-theoretical paradigm in biology back to “the bourgeois revolutions of the eighteenth century”. It’s funny how reductionistic leftists can become when trying to refute reductionism.
It’s one thing to dream of a more egalitarian, more democratic and more fair society; it’s another to filter facts according to that dream. I find this confusion especially troubling for a scientist: everything he writes suggests that if ever science shows beyond dispute that intelligence – or some other “good” quality – is differentially inherited, he will reject that conclusion just because it’s not in line with his precious ideals of equality and fairness. (He actually has a go at it in the book, and maybe this isn’t much of a problem for him since he admits that scientists are inevitably ideological creatures.)
Speaking of fairness, I actually loved the book (1) because it is nicely designed and (2) because Lewontin certainly has a rare gift of balancing our thinking against the sometimes lazy Dawkins-Dennett line of thought by pointing out neglected perspectives and offering a lot of food for thought. The problem is that – just like his ally Gould – often he’s pushing it too far, to the point that the poor arguments injected at those specific points compromise his otherwise amazing authorship.
It’s one thing to dream of a more egalitarian, more democratic and more fair society; it’s another to filter facts according to that dream. I find this confusion especially troubling for a scientist: everything he writes suggests that if ever science shows beyond dispute that intelligence – or some other “good” quality – is differentially inherited, he will reject that conclusion just because it’s not in line with his precious ideals of equality and fairness. (He actually has a go at it in the book, and maybe this isn’t much of a problem for him since he admits that scientists are inevitably ideological creatures.)
Speaking of fairness, I actually loved the book (1) because it is nicely designed and (2) because Lewontin certainly has a rare gift of balancing our thinking against the sometimes lazy Dawkins-Dennett line of thought by pointing out neglected perspectives and offering a lot of food for thought. The problem is that – just like his ally Gould – often he’s pushing it too far, to the point that the poor arguments injected at those specific points compromise his otherwise amazing authorship.
November 2, 2025
After reading this book (and as a biologist lol), I think Darwin and science as a whole should be challenged more often. This book is essentially a collection of essays arguing that modern day biology is almost a religion and it is heavily influenced by the society - more than we like to admit. It was written before the entire human genome was sequenced and it's interesting to hear reasons why people were/were not in favor of it.
Reminded me of a somewhat related question: if you're not worshiping God, who are you worshiping ... science, your desires, people's approval?
Reminded me of a somewhat related question: if you're not worshiping God, who are you worshiping ... science, your desires, people's approval?
August 8, 2022
I thought this was an excellent set of Massey Lectures, likely one of my favourites. All of them are available to listen to online here.
I’m in a couple Science for the People reading groups, and Lewontin gets mentioned almost every time, which is maybe to be expected because he was one of the founding members of the Chicago chapter, and in many ways became someone very closely associated with SftP. I can’t believe I never encountered his work in any STS courses. I still think he provides some of the clearest analysis in critical science studies. Some fantastic material on sociobiology and gene fetishism (I don’t think Lewontin uses that term explicitly, but I think Haraway’s term here is useful).
My friend wrote a paper on Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid recently that was going through some of the stuff Lewontin discusses in his fourth lecture. I’ll just share a relevant excerpt that I found fascinating, because it’s not exactly what one might expect from a Marxist. It is the only mention of Marx in his series of lectures, despite Lewontin himself being a Marxist:
“Every political philosophy has to begin with a theory of human nature. Surely, if we cannot say what it is to be truly human, we cannot argue for one or another form of social organization. Social revolutionaries, especially, must have a notion of what it is to be truly human because the call for revolution is the call for the spilling of blood and a wholesale reorganization of the world. One cannot call for a violent overthrow of what is, without claiming that what will be is more in accord with the true nature of human existence. So, even Karl Marx, whose view of society was an historical one, nevertheless believed that there was a true human nature and that human beings realize themselves in their essence by a planned social manipulation of nature for human welfare.”
To conclude I will just share two excerpts from my two favourite lectures, which are the first and last lectures. This excerpt from the opening of his first lecture is just so clearly articulated and he presents it in such a common-sensical way that I love:
“…science, like other productive activities, like the state, the family, sport, is a social institution completely integrated into and influenced by the structure of all our other social institutions. …Scientists do not begin life as scientists, after all, but as social beings immersed in a family, a state, a productive structure, and they view nature through a lens that has been molded by their social experience.”
The last excerpt I want to share is very long, but will be extremely relevant to my own research, and I think it will be important to an article I plan to pitch to SftP (hopefully good news to share regarding this in the future):
“Every living organism is in a constant process of changing the world in which it lives by taking up materials and putting out others. Every act of consumption is also an act of production. And every act of production is an act of consumption. When we consume food, we produce not only gases but solid waste products that are in turn the materials for consumption of some other organism.
A consequence of the universality of environmental change induced by the life activity of organisms is that every organism is both producing and destroying the conditions of its existence. There is a great deal of talk about how we as human beings are destroying the environment. But we are not unique in the fact that our life processes are recreating the world in a way that is in part hostile to the continuation of our own lives.
…It is entirely correct that human beings should want to make a world in which they can live happy, healthful, and reasonably long lives. But we cannot do that under the banner of "Save the Environment," because this slogan assumes that there is an environment that has been created by nature and that we in our foolishness are destroying. It assumes, too, that there is such a thing as the balance of nature, that everything is in a balance and harmony that is being destroyed only by the foolishness and greed of human beings.
…The environment has never existed and there has never been balance or harmony. Fully 99. 999 percent of all species that have ever existed are already extinct, and in the end all will become extinct. Indeed, life is about half over. Our estimates are that the first living organisms appeared on earth in the order of 3 to 4 billion years ago, and we know from stellar evolution that our sun will expand and burn up the earth in another 3 to 4 billion years, putting an end to everything.
…So any rational environmental movement must abandon the romantic and totally unfounded ideological commitment to a harmonious and balanced world in which the environment is preserved and turn its attention to the real question, which is, how do people want to live and how are they to arrange that they live that way?”
As a quick post script, this is an excerpt from John Bellamy Foster’s book Marx’s Ecology that discusses this notion Lewontin discusses above, and includes an interesting excerpt from Engels:
“From the moment human beings begin to produce, human history begins, distinguishing itself from the history of animals—though here too there are no hard and fast distinctions. Animals too relate to the natural world in a way that is coevolutionary, changing their environments as well as being affected by it.
‘We have seen how goats have prevented the regeneration of forests in Greece; on the island of St. Helena, goats and pigs brought by the first arrivals have succeeded in exterminating its old vegetation almost completely, and so have prepared the ground for the plants brought by later sailors and colonists. But animals exert a lasting effect on their environment unintentionally and, as far as the animals themselves are concerned, accidentally.’
Although animals can in some cases plan responses to their environment, ‘all the planned action of all animals has never succeeded in impressing the stamp of their will upon the earth...’”
I’m in a couple Science for the People reading groups, and Lewontin gets mentioned almost every time, which is maybe to be expected because he was one of the founding members of the Chicago chapter, and in many ways became someone very closely associated with SftP. I can’t believe I never encountered his work in any STS courses. I still think he provides some of the clearest analysis in critical science studies. Some fantastic material on sociobiology and gene fetishism (I don’t think Lewontin uses that term explicitly, but I think Haraway’s term here is useful).
My friend wrote a paper on Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid recently that was going through some of the stuff Lewontin discusses in his fourth lecture. I’ll just share a relevant excerpt that I found fascinating, because it’s not exactly what one might expect from a Marxist. It is the only mention of Marx in his series of lectures, despite Lewontin himself being a Marxist:
“Every political philosophy has to begin with a theory of human nature. Surely, if we cannot say what it is to be truly human, we cannot argue for one or another form of social organization. Social revolutionaries, especially, must have a notion of what it is to be truly human because the call for revolution is the call for the spilling of blood and a wholesale reorganization of the world. One cannot call for a violent overthrow of what is, without claiming that what will be is more in accord with the true nature of human existence. So, even Karl Marx, whose view of society was an historical one, nevertheless believed that there was a true human nature and that human beings realize themselves in their essence by a planned social manipulation of nature for human welfare.”
To conclude I will just share two excerpts from my two favourite lectures, which are the first and last lectures. This excerpt from the opening of his first lecture is just so clearly articulated and he presents it in such a common-sensical way that I love:
“…science, like other productive activities, like the state, the family, sport, is a social institution completely integrated into and influenced by the structure of all our other social institutions. …Scientists do not begin life as scientists, after all, but as social beings immersed in a family, a state, a productive structure, and they view nature through a lens that has been molded by their social experience.”
The last excerpt I want to share is very long, but will be extremely relevant to my own research, and I think it will be important to an article I plan to pitch to SftP (hopefully good news to share regarding this in the future):
“Every living organism is in a constant process of changing the world in which it lives by taking up materials and putting out others. Every act of consumption is also an act of production. And every act of production is an act of consumption. When we consume food, we produce not only gases but solid waste products that are in turn the materials for consumption of some other organism.
A consequence of the universality of environmental change induced by the life activity of organisms is that every organism is both producing and destroying the conditions of its existence. There is a great deal of talk about how we as human beings are destroying the environment. But we are not unique in the fact that our life processes are recreating the world in a way that is in part hostile to the continuation of our own lives.
…It is entirely correct that human beings should want to make a world in which they can live happy, healthful, and reasonably long lives. But we cannot do that under the banner of "Save the Environment," because this slogan assumes that there is an environment that has been created by nature and that we in our foolishness are destroying. It assumes, too, that there is such a thing as the balance of nature, that everything is in a balance and harmony that is being destroyed only by the foolishness and greed of human beings.
…The environment has never existed and there has never been balance or harmony. Fully 99. 999 percent of all species that have ever existed are already extinct, and in the end all will become extinct. Indeed, life is about half over. Our estimates are that the first living organisms appeared on earth in the order of 3 to 4 billion years ago, and we know from stellar evolution that our sun will expand and burn up the earth in another 3 to 4 billion years, putting an end to everything.
…So any rational environmental movement must abandon the romantic and totally unfounded ideological commitment to a harmonious and balanced world in which the environment is preserved and turn its attention to the real question, which is, how do people want to live and how are they to arrange that they live that way?”
As a quick post script, this is an excerpt from John Bellamy Foster’s book Marx’s Ecology that discusses this notion Lewontin discusses above, and includes an interesting excerpt from Engels:
“From the moment human beings begin to produce, human history begins, distinguishing itself from the history of animals—though here too there are no hard and fast distinctions. Animals too relate to the natural world in a way that is coevolutionary, changing their environments as well as being affected by it.
‘We have seen how goats have prevented the regeneration of forests in Greece; on the island of St. Helena, goats and pigs brought by the first arrivals have succeeded in exterminating its old vegetation almost completely, and so have prepared the ground for the plants brought by later sailors and colonists. But animals exert a lasting effect on their environment unintentionally and, as far as the animals themselves are concerned, accidentally.’
Although animals can in some cases plan responses to their environment, ‘all the planned action of all animals has never succeeded in impressing the stamp of their will upon the earth...’”
February 2, 2023
Lewontin is a polarizing figure, nevertheless he comes off quite reasonable in these lectures. He points out problems in the reductionist approach of modern evolutionary theory revolving around developmental variation, reaction norms, epigenetic's, geography etc. Towards the end of the lectures Lewontin's touches on the four laws of constructivism. This is pretty brilliant, and is pertinent to debates about the role of evolution and freedom. Constructivism allows for a space of freedom in organisms (and an especially large one in humans who can take conscious rational control of their social organization) while the range of freedom being necessarily limited by the limits of DNA. Lewontin goes into greater detail about how DNA and environment are reciprocally related at a deeper level and I am doing his exposition injustice.
It's worth noting that Lewontin's Marxism is evidently vulgar (characterized by his love of Engels dialectic). The use of dialectic as an adjective which appears every 3 sentences in Marxist lit is a leftover of the codification of Marixsm into a worldview/system. It's disappointing to see that Lewontin has adapted this approach to science in other publications. The Constructivist view that Lewontin lays out in his lectures would be much better served in the framework of Marx's "metabolic interaction between humans and nature" as opposed to Engels dialectics of nature.
It's worth noting that Lewontin's Marxism is evidently vulgar (characterized by his love of Engels dialectic). The use of dialectic as an adjective which appears every 3 sentences in Marxist lit is a leftover of the codification of Marixsm into a worldview/system. It's disappointing to see that Lewontin has adapted this approach to science in other publications. The Constructivist view that Lewontin lays out in his lectures would be much better served in the framework of Marx's "metabolic interaction between humans and nature" as opposed to Engels dialectics of nature.
July 16, 2024
Wow! The philosophy and evolution of science has always fascinated me, but this text, dialectical and materialist through and through, provides an analysis of the weaponization of biology, specifically DNA and genetics. Despite this seemingly narrow subject, the author takes us on a tour of mankind’s existence and what it means to perceive and manipulate the world around us. Weaving in anecdotes, studies, and historical parallels, Lewontin’s deep dives into science as a complex, political, historical and socially produced institution.
Most importantly, Lewontin draws the revolutionary conclusions of living in a dialectical, ever-evolving society, as opposed to that of a strict, unchanging and ahistorical one.
This text changed so much of what I believed to be legitimate science, and what “legitimate science” even is. I will be thinking about this text and will reference it for many, many years to come.
Most importantly, Lewontin draws the revolutionary conclusions of living in a dialectical, ever-evolving society, as opposed to that of a strict, unchanging and ahistorical one.
This text changed so much of what I believed to be legitimate science, and what “legitimate science” even is. I will be thinking about this text and will reference it for many, many years to come.
September 12, 2025
This was a fascinating read! A fantastic takedown of the "neutrality" of science and a wonderful demonstration of the dialectical relationship between organisms and the environments that both create them and that are created by them.
February 18, 2017
Lewontin offers a critique of the genetic determinism of Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson and others like them. He makes the case that arguments that emphasize the immutability of inherited characteristics are, at best, highly misguided, and, at worst, an ideological ploy to defend the status quo.
It is useful to be reminded that the genome is not destiny and that society can be transformed for the better. It is empowering to think that society can affect economic and social outcomes. And racist, sexist, homophobic and classist world views certainly influence the practice of science.
But Lewontin fails to do justice to the findings of modern genetics. In an effort to defend the power of nurture (with developmental "semi-environmental" mutations added to the mix), he overstates the power of education and social mores to refine human nature. He claims that the evidence for the very existence of a fixed human nature is ambiguous. But today it is quite clear that the empirical evidence is overwhelming for a strong genetic component in almost all aspects of social outcomes, individual differences, etc.
The low point of his argument is to argue against the sequencing of the human genome (what later became the Human Genome Project). Today we can see that the field of genetic medicine and gene manipulation has incredible potential. Had we listened to Lewontin's argument, we would have been deprived of great advances in this area of transformative science.
While he makes some reasonable points about genes being the trend du jour, these should not blind us to reject an opportunity to learn more about life - and ourselves.
Indeed, the genetic story is not a right-wing conspiracy to keep poor people, black people and women in their place. Rather, it is a transformative power that can be used to revolutionize social relations, medicine and even morality itself. As it turns out, we should take control over our genes in order to enhance, rather than dampen, the efforts of social reformers to improve society.
It is useful to be reminded that the genome is not destiny and that society can be transformed for the better. It is empowering to think that society can affect economic and social outcomes. And racist, sexist, homophobic and classist world views certainly influence the practice of science.
But Lewontin fails to do justice to the findings of modern genetics. In an effort to defend the power of nurture (with developmental "semi-environmental" mutations added to the mix), he overstates the power of education and social mores to refine human nature. He claims that the evidence for the very existence of a fixed human nature is ambiguous. But today it is quite clear that the empirical evidence is overwhelming for a strong genetic component in almost all aspects of social outcomes, individual differences, etc.
The low point of his argument is to argue against the sequencing of the human genome (what later became the Human Genome Project). Today we can see that the field of genetic medicine and gene manipulation has incredible potential. Had we listened to Lewontin's argument, we would have been deprived of great advances in this area of transformative science.
While he makes some reasonable points about genes being the trend du jour, these should not blind us to reject an opportunity to learn more about life - and ourselves.
Indeed, the genetic story is not a right-wing conspiracy to keep poor people, black people and women in their place. Rather, it is a transformative power that can be used to revolutionize social relations, medicine and even morality itself. As it turns out, we should take control over our genes in order to enhance, rather than dampen, the efforts of social reformers to improve society.
May 4, 2019
Complete garbage. Filled with factual errors and sophistry. Nothing but a desperate attempt to reconcile empirical realities that are contrary to an ideology.
Better title would be: “Ideology over biology”
This is much better:
“The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution”
Better title would be: “Ideology over biology”
This is much better:
“The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution”
August 31, 2017
The Massey Lectures - #03
Biology as Ideology: the doctrine of DNA é o tema de 1990 das Massey Lectures. O autor é biólogo evolucionário e geneticista - e é preciso ter em mente que é a fala de uma época pré-Dolly (1996) e pré-genoma humano sequenciado (2003).
No entanto, Lewontin organiza sua fala em torno de um ponto muito importante - e, grande parte das vezes, largamente ignorado - quando discutimos ciência: a associação com ideologias. As desigualdades sociais, econômicas, raciais, geográficas e de classe influem diretamente na dinâmica das sociedades - é ingênuo pensar que não influenciariam também as ciências. Não estamos falando de campos de estudo puramente devotados ao conhecimento, sem uma agenda específica; a biologia, a química, a física e quaisquer ramificações que possamos pensar a partir daí resvalam no problema das ideologias. Em geral a pesquisa e aplicação de novas tecnologias não estão desassociadas de ideias vigentes e agendas econômicas específicas - o que levanta um sem número de dilemas éticos.
Biology as Ideology: the doctrine of DNA é o tema de 1990 das Massey Lectures. O autor é biólogo evolucionário e geneticista - e é preciso ter em mente que é a fala de uma época pré-Dolly (1996) e pré-genoma humano sequenciado (2003).
No entanto, Lewontin organiza sua fala em torno de um ponto muito importante - e, grande parte das vezes, largamente ignorado - quando discutimos ciência: a associação com ideologias. As desigualdades sociais, econômicas, raciais, geográficas e de classe influem diretamente na dinâmica das sociedades - é ingênuo pensar que não influenciariam também as ciências. Não estamos falando de campos de estudo puramente devotados ao conhecimento, sem uma agenda específica; a biologia, a química, a física e quaisquer ramificações que possamos pensar a partir daí resvalam no problema das ideologias. Em geral a pesquisa e aplicação de novas tecnologias não estão desassociadas de ideias vigentes e agendas econômicas específicas - o que levanta um sem número de dilemas éticos.
April 26, 2023
Short and definitive discussion about the replacement of Church/God with the scientific individualist society; its' roots and terrible shortcomings/outcomes. Beautiful deconstruction of the Human Genome Project. Even though it speaks of so many terrible ideas and acts, somehow it manages to be hopeful in the end.
October 19, 2025
Compagno Lewontin dettaci la linea
July 29, 2024
Absolutely mind blowing
September 24, 2017
I think he is a Marxist/communist. But he is not a dogmatist, people. Not only does he criticise the mainstream view of evolutionary biology, he also offers his own view of evolutionary biology: According to his view, organisms are not only passive recipients but are also active creators. That is, organisms have the ability to create their own environment. So, his view is constructivist while those he criticises hold an adaptationist view of evolutionary biology. In that way, genes play only a negligible role in forming the characteristics of the organisms. It is the social and environmental conditioning that play a major role. So, the nature of an individual is largely determined not by genes but by the social environment in which he or she is brought up. It should be noted that there is a dialectical interaction between the genes and the environment. Now, with this theory in place, status-quoists can no longer justify capitalism by claiming that humans are ultimately selfish organisms. If the environment is created in such a way that will allow room for humans to be selfless and co-operative and fraternal, the nature of humans will itself be modified to such an extent that there may even be no trace of selfishness in their behavioural traits. And this is the reason that Lewontin argues for the establishment of a communist society, where there will be no class or caste distinctions and the environment of production and consumption will be in a healthy state that will give humans freedom to be selfless and creative and productive. He also goes on in his book to state where the adaptationist biologists make mistakes or errors in their methods.
He seems honest enough in his book. (He has even admitted that his political beliefs, which is of communism, has interfered in his scientific works. Such is his honesty.) And his sentences are not obscure, most of all. He employed a great deal of common sense. So the reader won't feel cheated or stupified or mystified after reading the book.
One thing that I want to know is whether these scientists, who are allegedly maintaining the status quo, are propagating these biased views intentionally or unintentionally. Since they are under the influence of the socio-political atmosphere (structure), they could have been doing it unknowingly too.
Also, one may get the feeling that, since Science ultimately rests on the socio-political atmosphere, it has lost its sceptre of objectivity. (Here I am reminded of Paul Feyerabend.) Well, one will have to simply have faith in Science or will have to wait for the post-scientific era. For what other sane options do we really have?
He seems honest enough in his book. (He has even admitted that his political beliefs, which is of communism, has interfered in his scientific works. Such is his honesty.) And his sentences are not obscure, most of all. He employed a great deal of common sense. So the reader won't feel cheated or stupified or mystified after reading the book.
One thing that I want to know is whether these scientists, who are allegedly maintaining the status quo, are propagating these biased views intentionally or unintentionally. Since they are under the influence of the socio-political atmosphere (structure), they could have been doing it unknowingly too.
Also, one may get the feeling that, since Science ultimately rests on the socio-political atmosphere, it has lost its sceptre of objectivity. (Here I am reminded of Paul Feyerabend.) Well, one will have to simply have faith in Science or will have to wait for the post-scientific era. For what other sane options do we really have?
July 15, 2024
The book deals with some important questions regarding human nature and the duality of nature and nurture, social Darwinism and biological determinism (genes) and above all it deals with the question of how "pure" science is and how it is used to justify the status quo as natural and so on
For further reading I'd recommend this radical critique of science https://magazine.scienceforthepeople....
"Science, like other productive activities, like the state, the family, sport, is a social institution completely integrated into and influenced by the structure of all our other social institutions. The problems that science deals with, the ideas that it uses in investigating those problems, even the so-called scientific results that come out of scientific investigation, are all deeply influenced by predispositions that derive from the society in which we live. Scientists do not begin life as scientists, after all, but as social beings immersed in a family, a state, a productive structure, and they view nature through a lens that has been molded by their social experience.
Above that personal level of perception, science is molded by society because it is a human productive activity that takes time and money, and so is guided by and directed by those forces in the world that have control over money and time. Science uses commodities and is part of the process of commodity production. Science uses money. People earn their living by science, and as a consequence the dominant social and economic forces in society determine to a large extent what science does and how it does it. More than that, those forces have the power to appropriate from science ideas that are particularly suited to the maintenance and continued prosperity of the social structures of which they are a part. So other social institutions have an input into science both in what is done and how it is thought about, and they take from science concepts and ideas that then support their institutions and make them seem legitimate and natural. It is this dual process—on the one hand, of the social influence and control of what scientists do and say, and, on the other hand, the use of what scientists do and say to further support the institutions of society—that is meant when we speak of science as ideology."
For further reading I'd recommend this radical critique of science https://magazine.scienceforthepeople....
"Science, like other productive activities, like the state, the family, sport, is a social institution completely integrated into and influenced by the structure of all our other social institutions. The problems that science deals with, the ideas that it uses in investigating those problems, even the so-called scientific results that come out of scientific investigation, are all deeply influenced by predispositions that derive from the society in which we live. Scientists do not begin life as scientists, after all, but as social beings immersed in a family, a state, a productive structure, and they view nature through a lens that has been molded by their social experience.
Above that personal level of perception, science is molded by society because it is a human productive activity that takes time and money, and so is guided by and directed by those forces in the world that have control over money and time. Science uses commodities and is part of the process of commodity production. Science uses money. People earn their living by science, and as a consequence the dominant social and economic forces in society determine to a large extent what science does and how it does it. More than that, those forces have the power to appropriate from science ideas that are particularly suited to the maintenance and continued prosperity of the social structures of which they are a part. So other social institutions have an input into science both in what is done and how it is thought about, and they take from science concepts and ideas that then support their institutions and make them seem legitimate and natural. It is this dual process—on the one hand, of the social influence and control of what scientists do and say, and, on the other hand, the use of what scientists do and say to further support the institutions of society—that is meant when we speak of science as ideology."
May 20, 2020
The points this book makes are basically good, but I absolutely don't recommend reading it these days, except as a curious historical document. It is essentially a refutation of a number of racist / classist theories posited in earlier phases of DNA research. There's a strong Marxist undercurrent, but it doesn't often get in the way of the science.
The problem, however, is that the core of what Lewontin is arguing for has been largely accepted. Genetic determinism isn't the dominant thought in DNA research (and I'm not sure that it was when this was written either), and the complex interrelation between environmental and hereditary factors is now much better understood, both in the scientific community and in mainstream society.
The impassioned calls for social change now look dated. They're fine, and I often agree with the author on the need for social change, but these parts are now a distraction from the scientific discussion, being rooted as they are in a certain time and place. This whole book feels 'of its time'. The scientists which argued for nuance in DNA research have won the discussion, so mostly this book is kinda redundant now. Does anyone even think about The Bell Curve anymore?
The problem, however, is that the core of what Lewontin is arguing for has been largely accepted. Genetic determinism isn't the dominant thought in DNA research (and I'm not sure that it was when this was written either), and the complex interrelation between environmental and hereditary factors is now much better understood, both in the scientific community and in mainstream society.
The impassioned calls for social change now look dated. They're fine, and I often agree with the author on the need for social change, but these parts are now a distraction from the scientific discussion, being rooted as they are in a certain time and place. This whole book feels 'of its time'. The scientists which argued for nuance in DNA research have won the discussion, so mostly this book is kinda redundant now. Does anyone even think about The Bell Curve anymore?
Read
July 27, 2011I find this an excellent book. It is well written and not too scholarly for a non-biology student like me. It also debunks the sociobiologists arguments about the humans being a puppet of the genes. In all honesty, I love all books that are critical against Richard Dawkins reductionist views. Lewontin's argument for the human being as first and foremost a social being is very convincing.
January 25, 2016
اصل جنس.
February 17, 2022
A bit thin on scientific examples, ironically, but the messages are still resonant even 30 years later.
March 24, 2025
cool dintr-o perspectivă comunistă, ridica unele semne de întrebare importante legate de influenta capitalismului asupra progresului științific si e super bună ca raspuns pentru oamenii care justifica regimul capitalist ca un fenomen derivat din natura umană, dar destul de învechită + cred ca are un potential imens de a fi folosita de antivaccinisti ca să îsi sustină teoriile.
"The nonsense propagated by ideologues of biological determinism that the lower classes are biologically inferior to the upper classes, that all the good things in European culture come from the Nordic groups, is precisely nonsense. It is meant to legitimate the structures of inequality in our society by putting a biological gloss on them and by propagating the continual confusion between what may be influenced by genes and what may be changed by social and environmental alterations.
The vulgar error that confuses heritability and fixity has been, over the years, the most powerful single weapon that biological ideologues have had in legitimating a society of inequality. Since as biologists they must know better, one is entitled to at least a suspicion that the beneficiaries of a system of inequality are not to be regarded as objective experts!"
"The nonsense propagated by ideologues of biological determinism that the lower classes are biologically inferior to the upper classes, that all the good things in European culture come from the Nordic groups, is precisely nonsense. It is meant to legitimate the structures of inequality in our society by putting a biological gloss on them and by propagating the continual confusion between what may be influenced by genes and what may be changed by social and environmental alterations.
The vulgar error that confuses heritability and fixity has been, over the years, the most powerful single weapon that biological ideologues have had in legitimating a society of inequality. Since as biologists they must know better, one is entitled to at least a suspicion that the beneficiaries of a system of inequality are not to be regarded as objective experts!"
October 17, 2020
كتاب من الحجم الصغير نسبياً، 115 صفحة تقريباً.
يتألف من خمسة فصول هي محاضرات الكاتب باللغة الإنجليزية وتم ووضعها في كتاب ونشر، ثم ترجم للعربية.
بشكل عام أعتبر الكتاب جيداً، لما يناقش من أفكار جريئة وقوية بتسليط الضوء على تسخير العلم لخدمة أجندات لجهات تملك القوة والمال ومسيطرة على المجتمع العلمي.
الأخطاء المطبعية تكاد تكون معدومة، والطباعة جيدة جداً (رواسخ الطبعة الثانية).
فيما يلي مختصر لمقدمة الدكتور محمد العوضي لهذا الكتاب:
البيولوجيا: أحد فروع العلوم الطبيعية، وهو علم يعني بدراسة الحياة وأشكالها المتنوعة، ويبحث في كيفية التفاعل بين الكائنات الحية بعضها مع بعض، ومع البيئة التي تعيش فيها.
الأيديولوجيا: النسق من الآراء والأفكار السياسية، والقانونية والأخلاقية، والجمالية، والدينية، والفلسفية.
والسؤال المتبادر إلى الذهن هو كيف يمكن لعلم البيولوجيا الخاص بحقل معرفي مادي طبيعي، أن يتحول إلى أيديولوجيا تخص عالم الأفكار والاتجاهات ذات الأثر في أنماط السلوك الإنساني.
أي كيف يمكن للبيولوجيا وهي علم حيادي معياري، صارم في أدوات بحثه وشروط قبول نتائجه، أن تصبح أيديولوجيا التي من سماتها الاستجابة للتحيزات والأهواء، والمصالح والخضوع الثقافة السائدة وأثر البيئة.
الكتاب الذي بين أيدينا محاولة لبيان ما يغيب ليس على العوام فحسب، بل على ما يغفل عنه العديد من علماء الطبيعيات أنفسهم حول تأثير الايديولوجيا الاجتماعية في تفسيراتهم العلمية.
يتألف من خمسة فصول هي محاضرات الكاتب باللغة الإنجليزية وتم ووضعها في كتاب ونشر، ثم ترجم للعربية.
بشكل عام أعتبر الكتاب جيداً، لما يناقش من أفكار جريئة وقوية بتسليط الضوء على تسخير العلم لخدمة أجندات لجهات تملك القوة والمال ومسيطرة على المجتمع العلمي.
الأخطاء المطبعية تكاد تكون معدومة، والطباعة جيدة جداً (رواسخ الطبعة الثانية).
فيما يلي مختصر لمقدمة الدكتور محمد العوضي لهذا الكتاب:
البيولوجيا: أحد فروع العلوم الطبيعية، وهو علم يعني بدراسة الحياة وأشكالها المتنوعة، ويبحث في كيفية التفاعل بين الكائنات الحية بعضها مع بعض، ومع البيئة التي تعيش فيها.
الأيديولوجيا: النسق من الآراء والأفكار السياسية، والقانونية والأخلاقية، والجمالية، والدينية، والفلسفية.
والسؤال المتبادر إلى الذهن هو كيف يمكن لعلم البيولوجيا الخاص بحقل معرفي مادي طبيعي، أن يتحول إلى أيديولوجيا تخص عالم الأفكار والاتجاهات ذات الأثر في أنماط السلوك الإنساني.
أي كيف يمكن للبيولوجيا وهي علم حيادي معياري، صارم في أدوات بحثه وشروط قبول نتائجه، أن تصبح أيديولوجيا التي من سماتها الاستجابة للتحيزات والأهواء، والمصالح والخضوع الثقافة السائدة وأثر البيئة.
الكتاب الذي بين أيدينا محاولة لبيان ما يغيب ليس على العوام فحسب، بل على ما يغفل عنه العديد من علماء الطبيعيات أنفسهم حول تأثير الايديولوجيا الاجتماعية في تفسيراتهم العلمية.
January 1, 2020
"Every breath you take removes oxygen and adds carbon dioxide to the world."
this is so obvious and yet i forget it all the time. we are in constant, physical dialogue with the world outside of us! the boundary between us and the great outdoors is unresolvable.
also loved the discussion of Size wrt the forces that we experience. such a basic way to demonstrate the anthropomorphization of what is outside of us.
a nice reminder that science is wholly shaped by the ideology it grows within.
this is so obvious and yet i forget it all the time. we are in constant, physical dialogue with the world outside of us! the boundary between us and the great outdoors is unresolvable.
also loved the discussion of Size wrt the forces that we experience. such a basic way to demonstrate the anthropomorphization of what is outside of us.
a nice reminder that science is wholly shaped by the ideology it grows within.
October 4, 2021
Çoğu zaman toplumsal eşitsizlikleri, biyolojik nedenlerle açıklayanlar mevcuttur. Örneğin bazılarının zengin bazılarının fakir olması biyolojik farklılıklarımızdan kaynaklanmaktadır. IQ değerlerimizin düşük veya yüksek olması tamamen kalıtımsaldır. Savaşların sebebi, genetik kodlarımızda saldırganlık bulunmasıdır. Güçlüler güçsüzleri ezer bu biyolojik bir durumdur. Bu argümanlarla varılmak istenen nokta şudur: "Bu eşitsizlikleri değiştiremezsiniz. Yapacak bir şey yok." Dolayısıyla adaletsizlikler, biyoloji ile meşrulaştırılmaya çalışılmaktadır. Lewontin ise buna karşı çıkmaktadır. Lewontin'e göre biyolojik dediğimiz çoğu şey ideolojiktir. Bilim, toplumsal bir oluşumdur ve çoğu zaman toplumun önyargılarını beslemek için bir meşruiyet aracı olarak kullanılır. DNA'ya sıkışıp kalmadığımızın, çevresel faktörlerin bizi inşa ettiğinin üzerinde durur. Hükümlerimizin çoğu bizim sosyokültürel inşalarımızdan ibarettir. Dolaylı olarak Lewontin'in şunu söylemek istediğini düşünebiliriz: "Değiştirebiliriz. Yapılacak çok şey var."
November 21, 2019
I had to read this for a class and it definitely has a lot of interesting topics but I wish he would have taken out some of the smaller topics and delved deeper into the more controversial topics. This book is almost 30 years old and society sadly still has a lot of the same problems.
June 3, 2017
A brilliant, subversive book. It debunks the commonly view of science as the 'value-free' pursuit of truth, with a more modest - but realistic - view of science as continuous with other social institutions. Science, Lewontin says, 'consists, in large part, of what scientists say about the world whatever the true state of the world might be' (n.b. this isn't coming from a postmodern professor of gender studies, but a Harvard lecturer in zoology).
At a practical level, the focus is on examining 'the doctrine of DNA'. We are well familiar with claims about *the* gene for cancer, homosexuality, even liberalism & conservatism. Some of this is simply bad journalism, but some of it might be misguided techno-optimism on the part of the scientists themselves. (Take, for example, the gene-editing tool called CRISPR, the "huge story" of 2017, with a 'dizzying potential' to 'upend science'. Which, by the way, introduced hundreds of unintented mutations. And this is just mice. Nevermind humans.)
Part of the problem, Lewontin argues, is a narrow methodological focus on causes at the lowest possible level (ideally, genes), from which you're supposed to work upwards to more complex phenomena. To take one of his interesting examples, the death rates from diseases like tuberculosis were falling at the end of the nineteenth century, and the introduction of the germ theory of disease by Koch seems not to have made much difference. Why? Because of general improvements in nutrition and raises in wages. 'Although one may say that the tubercle bacillus causes tuberculosis, we are much closer to the truth when we say it was the conditions of unregulated nineteenth-century competitive capitalism [...] that was the cause of tuberculosis. But social causes are not in the ambit of biological science'.
The book is particularly illuminating on the threefold cord of genes, environment and developmental noise and why it is hard conceptually, not just practically, to disentangle their causal roles. (The last chapter foreshadows current biological research on 'niche construction', the idea being that organisms actively *shape* their environment, not simply respond to it). Particularly since humans, unlike fruit flies, make for impure control groups - at least when it observing rather murky traits like intelligence, sexuality etc.
I'm sure some parts of the book might have since become outdated, but to me it was a tour de force.
At a practical level, the focus is on examining 'the doctrine of DNA'. We are well familiar with claims about *the* gene for cancer, homosexuality, even liberalism & conservatism. Some of this is simply bad journalism, but some of it might be misguided techno-optimism on the part of the scientists themselves. (Take, for example, the gene-editing tool called CRISPR, the "huge story" of 2017, with a 'dizzying potential' to 'upend science'. Which, by the way, introduced hundreds of unintented mutations. And this is just mice. Nevermind humans.)
Part of the problem, Lewontin argues, is a narrow methodological focus on causes at the lowest possible level (ideally, genes), from which you're supposed to work upwards to more complex phenomena. To take one of his interesting examples, the death rates from diseases like tuberculosis were falling at the end of the nineteenth century, and the introduction of the germ theory of disease by Koch seems not to have made much difference. Why? Because of general improvements in nutrition and raises in wages. 'Although one may say that the tubercle bacillus causes tuberculosis, we are much closer to the truth when we say it was the conditions of unregulated nineteenth-century competitive capitalism [...] that was the cause of tuberculosis. But social causes are not in the ambit of biological science'.
The book is particularly illuminating on the threefold cord of genes, environment and developmental noise and why it is hard conceptually, not just practically, to disentangle their causal roles. (The last chapter foreshadows current biological research on 'niche construction', the idea being that organisms actively *shape* their environment, not simply respond to it). Particularly since humans, unlike fruit flies, make for impure control groups - at least when it observing rather murky traits like intelligence, sexuality etc.
I'm sure some parts of the book might have since become outdated, but to me it was a tour de force.
November 19, 2016
In The Doctrine Of DNA - Biology As Ideology, famed geneticist and evolutionary scientist Professor Richard Lewontin demolishes the widespread notion that human nature - including a whole panoply of social factors such as hierarchical societies - is determined by our genes. It's a superb polemical attack on the crazed ideology of biological determinism, with more than a few swipes at how Western societies put the individual at the centre of things instead of having a more reasonable balance between individual and community.
The book is concise. Based on a series of lectures given in 1990, it develops the themes of skepticism, the uses of genetics, the scientific relationships between cause and effect, the social uses of science, and the relationship between the perception of science as pure and neutral and how it is actually used. Some pretty extraordinary examples are given of this latter relationship, showing how capitalist users of technology exploit both the environment and the people they leech off.
The author's ire then falls on the human genome programme, pointing out the inherent flaws in a plan that involves creating a "normal human genome" description when we're all genetically different. He concludes by pointing out how science education via textbooks simply repeats biological deterministic ideology as though it were proven fact.
A fantastic read, a devastating critique of the nonsense spouted by many, and a required read for anyone in the field of science. I almost never give 5* reviews: this is getting the full five.
The book is concise. Based on a series of lectures given in 1990, it develops the themes of skepticism, the uses of genetics, the scientific relationships between cause and effect, the social uses of science, and the relationship between the perception of science as pure and neutral and how it is actually used. Some pretty extraordinary examples are given of this latter relationship, showing how capitalist users of technology exploit both the environment and the people they leech off.
The author's ire then falls on the human genome programme, pointing out the inherent flaws in a plan that involves creating a "normal human genome" description when we're all genetically different. He concludes by pointing out how science education via textbooks simply repeats biological deterministic ideology as though it were proven fact.
A fantastic read, a devastating critique of the nonsense spouted by many, and a required read for anyone in the field of science. I almost never give 5* reviews: this is getting the full five.
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