Let's pay attention to Steven Rose and Richard Lewontin (prof. of genetics at Harvard).
http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/book-reviews/h/Not_in_Our_Genes.html
Not In Our Genes
Biology, Ideology and Human Nature
Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose + Leon
J. Kamin
Random House 1984
A book review by Danny Yee <danny@cs.usyd.edu.au>,
Not In Our Genes is a brilliant attack on reductionist claims that there
is
a biologically determined "human nature".
Do you think the concept of "race" means anything? 85% of all human
genetic variation is intra-population, 7% intra-race and only 8%
inter-racial.
Do you think that "intelligence" is inherited? There is no compelling
evidence that the heritability of I.Q. is anything other than 0.
Do you think the differences between men and women are genetically
and biologically ordained? Read chapter 6 and think again.
Are you worried about attempts to "fix" individuals to fit society, rather
than fixing the problems with society? Read chapter 7 and be very, very
afraid. (Of course the rioters in LA only rioted because they had brain
lesions :-)
Is society "naturally" hierarchical, with inequality an unavoidable
consequence of human nature? What does cause of schizophrenia and
mental illness? Are human social structures determined by human
biology and evolution? If you are interested in any of these questions
then you should read this book!
Not In Our Genes is also very enlightening on the relationship between
ideology and science, sloppy experimental technique, and outright
forgery...
Read this book!
11 May 1992
http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/book-reviews/h/The_Dialectical_Biologist.html
The Dialectical Biologist
Richard Levins + Richard Lewontin
Harvard University Press 1985
A book review by Danny Yee <danny@cs.usyd.edu.au>, Copyright © 1993
The Dialectical Biologist is a collection of essays on various aspects
of
biology. Richard Lewontin is a population geneticist and Richard Levins
is an ecologist, and they are both world-famous within their fields. Here
they are writing as Marxists (and dialectical materialists), and it is
this
that gives this book its unique perspective. It was by reading this book
that I first came to an understanding of the dialectical method and
attained some grasp of Marx and Engel's broader philosophy. Perhaps
this is because my understanding of biology is better than my
understanding of economics and political theory, or perhaps it is simply
because Marx's writings are difficult to come to grips with and the
commentary on them is so contentious.
The essays are divided into three sections. The first is about evolution,
and the three essays it contains are all attacks on the adaptionist,
neo-Darwinian view of the subject. The essays are lucid and well argued
(as one would expect from the author of The Genetic Basis of
Evolutionary Change) but there is a bit of repetition between them (two
of them were originally encyclopaedia articles on "Evolution" and
"Adaption"). The second section, entitled "On Anlysis", contains a
warning of the potential for misuse of the analysis of variance in
genetics, the brilliantly funny parody "Isadore Nabi on the Tendencies
of
Motion" and an essay on the relationship between dialectics and
reductionism which makes particular reference to community ecology.
The third section, entitled "Science as a Social Product and the Social
Product of Science", contains an eclectic collection of essays on the use
of science and the effects of social factors on science. The essay titles
are "Lysenkoism", "The Commoditization of Science", "Biology in the
Third World", "Political Economy of Agricultural Research", "The
Pesticide System", "Research Needs for Latin Community Health" and
"What is Human Nature?". The essay on Lysenkoism was the one I
found the most interesting; while not denying the scientific errors
involved, it is concerned to explain the full complexities of the "affair",
which are all too often ignored by those using it as a stick to beat
Marxism with. The common feature of all the essays is respect for the
complexities of social processes, scientific practice and the interaction
between them.
The conclusion is a short (around twenty page) general discussion on the
philosophical foundations of science entitled "Dialectics". It is one of
the
best things I have ever read on the philosophy of science, and a worthy
conclusion to a great book. The Dialectical Biologist is heartily
recommended to anyone with an interest in biology or the philosophy of
science.
26 July 1993
http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/book-reviews/h/Lifelines.html
Lifelines
Biology, Freedom, Determinism
Steven Rose
Penguin 1997
A book review by Danny Yee <danny@cs.usyd.edu.au>, Copyright © 1998
Much has been written in opposition to narrowly reductionist approaches
to biology, but much of that is anti-scientific, tending to vitalism if
not to
outright mysticism. This is not a charge that can be levelled at Steven
Rose, a highly respected biochemist and a convinced materialist. Nor
does Rose take an entirely negative approach, making hit-and-run attacks
on individual weak points. His target in Lifelines is genetic reductionism
(and his bete noire is Richard Dawkins, of The Selfish Gene fame), but
his reach extends as far as the presentation of a complete alternative
philosophy of biology. An outline of this forms the first chapter.
Using his own work as a source of examples, Rose begins by looking at
some of the broad issues raised by the study of the natural world:
observation and intervention, the use of metaphors and analogies, and
the idea of natural kinds. Moving on to more formal epistemology and
the philosophy of science, Rose fits into one chapter discussion of
Bacon, Popper, Kuhn, the relationship between science and society, and
the sociology of science. This is an excellent outline, which could stand
alone as a succinct introduction to a difficult and often poorly treated
topic.
Rose goes on to look at different kinds of reductionism. He evaluates the
successes and limitations of methodological reductionism and theory
reduction (relating theories from different disciplines), but his
disagreement is principally with philosophical reductionism, in which the
"pyramid" of disciplines is collapsed completely. Rose argues for
ontological unity but epistemological diversity, for the validity of
different levels of explanation of the one world.
A chapter on "genes and organisms" explains basic genetics, taking a
historical approach. Rose highlights the complexity of the relationship
between genes, chromosomes, genomes, and organisms, and the need
for concepts such as norms of reaction in modeling the rarely simple or
linear relationships between genotype and phenotype. In what is perhaps
the key chapter of Lifelines, Rose next presents his own framework for
viewing life, using concepts of lifelines (an attempt to capture the
significance of the temporal dimension), homeostasis and
homeodynamics, autopoiesis, and self-organisation. This framework
attempts to do proper justice to the complexity of life, so if it is not
complete and does not offer immediate answers to all the questions one
might ask, that is not unexpected - or a failing.
Turning to evolutionary theories, Rose again takes a historical approach,
going back to Darwin's precursors and then considering the challenges
Darwin himself faced: the origin and preservation of variation, adaptation
and design, and speciation. He also explains sexual and kin selection and
the concept of heritability.
Some of the excesses of Darwinism are touched on in this, but for Rose,
the metaphysical foundation of Ultra-Darwinism is a belief that the
purpose of life is reproduction. On this foundation rest two further
premises - that the fundamental unit of life is the individual gene and
that
all features of an organism are in some way adaptive. Rose explores
aspects of evolution left out by this kind of approach. He sketches some
of the ways in which selection can act other than on individual genes:
on
the genome, on cells during development, and on populations and
species. He also considers the importance of evolutionary history in
constraining selection, and of mechanisms other than selection. (Not
surprisingly, he draws on Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin for
much of this material.)
As a kind of case study, Rose offers a chapter on abiogenesis, on the
origin of life. He sketches some RNA world possibilities, stressing that
some form of system enclosed by a membrane (a basic cell or organism)
must have been as fundamental as nucleic acids or other molecular
replicators.
The penultimate chapter, "the poverty of reductionism", is a critical look
at philosophical reductionism, at reductionism used as an ideological
weapon in "neurogenetic determinism", especially in IQ studies and racial
science. Rose analyses some of the devices used: reification, arbitrary
agglomeration, improper quantification, the abuse of statistics, spurious
localisation, misplaced causation, and the confusion of metaphor with
homology, among others. But Lifelines concludes on a more positive
note, with Rose sketching in the final chapter what he considers is
necessary "to make biology whole again".
Lifelines is an important book. As an attempt to give the lay reader a
high-level overview of biology that doesn't hide its complexities, it lacks
the simplicity - and perhaps much of the attraction - of popular science
books which focus on single ideas, offer simple answers, and sweep
complex epistemological and philosophical issues under the carpet.
Lifelines is, however, an important antidote to the misunderstandings
about biology that such simplifications can produce, and should certainly
be read by anyone who has uncritically swallowed Dawkins' The Selfish
Gene or Wilson's Sociobiology. While Rose's own philosophical
framework is hardly uncontroversial, even opponents should find it
valuable as a challenge and a source of ideas.
--
Mine Aysen Doyran
PhD Student
Department of Political Science
SUNY at Albany
Nelson A. Rockefeller College
135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
Albany, NY 12222