Not In Our Genes: Biology, Ideology, and Human Nature

by Richard C. Lewontin, Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin

Informative, entertaining, lucid, forceful, frequently witty . . . never dull . . . should be read and remembered for a long time."—New York Times Book Review

"The authors argue persuasively that biological explanations for why we act as we do are based on faulty (in some cases, fabricated) data and wild speculation. . . . It is debunking at its best."—Psychology Today

"An important and timely book"—Stephen Jay Gould

Not in our Genes systematically exposes and dismantles the claims that inequalities—class, race, gender—are the products of biological, genetic inheritances.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Biology, Psychology, Politics, Philosophy, Evolution

346 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Richard 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.

Reviews

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

One day there may well be cures for all manner of illnesses that will be due to our deeper understanding of the way genes work. What there will never be is a genetic explanation for racial diffences. That is because such racial differences simply don't exist.

Not only does this book show that genetic explanations for racial differences are just so much pseudo-scientific rubbish, but it also explains, in remarkably simple language, some of the problems with linking 'causes' with 'effects'. The description of the radio here is something I will never forget.

This is a terribly important book and one that ought to be read by more people. Only by understanding the limits of what genetics can explain can we understand the wonders of what it can explain.

[Griffin Wilson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought I would try to confront this view again to see if my mind would change.

Complete garbage. Total waste of time.

They say they do not believe twin studies to be reliable because in those studies analyzed n was less than 50. Hopefully, now -- 40+ years later -- people will never make such an argument, as we know that all traits are heritable (Polderman et al 2015, a meta-analysis of 2,700 studies w/ 14,000,000+ twin pairs) and that the reality of the g-factor is no longer debated (Sternberg 2018)-- it is time to move on.

[Sandra · Rating 1 out of 5]

That "scientists" like these authors exist scares me way more than all Donald Trumps of the world. Science should be that rock you can always cling to, no matter how wobbly it can be at times. Well, apparently not. People calling themselves scientists are too often dishonoring all scientific tenets. The high raiting the book got is disheartening.

The entire premise is explicitly biased and politically motivated (they don't even try to hide it), not to mention intellectually dishonest. As someone without a horse in this particular race, I would not mind hearing a sound critique of any scientific theory. What this title offers is not science, at least not in any meaningful sense of the word.

[Vagabond of Letters, DLitt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Marxist, environmentalist*, theory-laden (political-correctness-overriding-science: 'science' in service of a predetermined political agenda), and anti-adaptationist: these few phrases sum up the totality of this tendentious work.

I can't take anything that's anti-adaptationist seriously. It's laughable today. I don't know if it was in 1972 (year of publication), but I expect so.

*In the sense of opposing Galtonianism or hereditarianism, not in the sense opposing fracking or greenhouse gases.

[Rishab · Rating 5 out of 5]

This arguments put forth in this book are versatile and immortal, no matter how many of the supporting details have been dated since its publication in 1984. It is both a timely response to the growing strains of genetic reductionism of the time but also much ahead of its time. As of today, in 2020, establishment technoscience has honed inward at genes, fawned over silver-bullet magic pills, and is salivating at the prospect of editing the human germline. This book is a useful tool for examining the prevailing ideologies that have led us to the point.

The central arguments by Lewontin et al. are many but unifying. Some of them include:
• Inequalities in status, wealth, and powers are not biologically inherited (given how much they had to overstate this with numerous examples, it likely wasn't obvious enough at the time of initial publication).
• Heritability and fixedness are not one and the same, as many determinists believe. Further, "heritability" is a population genetics metric contingent on the specific nature and environment of the population in question, thus it is a not accurate for gauging individual genetic relatedness of traits.
• "Ought" cannot be derived from "is" as many sociobiologists - and now evolutionary psychologist - commit (naturalistic fallacy)
• + a lot more

Other times, they showcase plain fraud in research methods and design, including failure to match controls properly, omission of relevant tables, and literal data fabrication. This was mainly in the context of debunking the false claims for existence of racial differences in IQ, the heritability of schizophrenia, and the concept of schizophrenia as a unitary illness. (This section was mostly written by late psychologist Leon Kamin.)

They vividly explain how the mechanistic machine model, legitimated by global capitalism and patriarchy, for understanding individuals in society is crude and inaccurate. The crux of their dissections of biologically determinist arguments is that individuals are not ontologically prior to society or environment (nor vice-versa, which is cultural determinism). Rather, they offer their own dialectical model whereby organism and environment each influence each other and are codeterminate.

Not In Our Genes is cutting, thorough, humorous, and polemical. It is a must-read (especially the final chapter) for those in the sciences.

[Bryn Hammond]

I needed these authors at that stage of my intellectual life when I was caught in the toils of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology – dismal years of spiritual depression or oppression. But I didn’t have Goodreads then, to locate alternate ideas, and I’m not of scientific background, to find my way around. So I bought this secondhand a couple of decades too late.

I find it unreadable now. It’s far too politicised, from the calm waters I am since in. Biology is, of course, ideology (their slogan and title of another book). One way to see that – which made an impression on me – is to follow how evolutionary science went quite differently in a different culture: case study: Darwin Without Malthus: The Struggle for Existence in Russian Evolutionary Thought. But it’s work on animals that gave me my alternative: Frans de Waal and others. In retrospect, for my spiritual salvation (I don't mean religious, which I've never been), I only needed to go back to Dostoyevsky, who was in a fight against an old determinism, whereas I had met a new.

[Ruby Hollyberry]

Read this many years ago. The entire book is pretty much an answer to too much sociobiology and genetic determinism in some scientific circles at the time. Well, their enemies seem to have survived them. Nature vs. nurture seems to still be going on full steam, with folks on both sides and many more in the middle. These are the nurture guys. But mostly what I remember about the book was the vehement attacks on the purists on the genetic side. What they're saying is largely true: there is a danger to too much reliance on genetic determination - it does make a slide into eugenics and biological fascism seem acceptable. For anyone who believes in eugenics still I recommend an article I read recently in a ladies' mag (think it was Elle, which I don't think I've ever read an article in before) about a young woman who grew up suspecting she was adopted although no one would discuss it with her. She grew up smart, pretty and successful, with a normal life and children, and then when she went looking for answers it turned out her father was a violent psychopath and her mother was profoundly retarded. Sociobiologists would no doubt have sterilized them both.

[Nacho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Venía de haber leído "La naturaleza humana", de Jesús Mosterín, y necesitaba una visión más compleja y menos reduccionista del tema. Este libro cumplió con creces.

Los autores (científicos reputados dentro de su campo) son claros en sus principios: su intención es construir una sociedad más justa e igualitaria —una sociedad socialista—, y esa es la base de su exposición. Adoptan una postura que me parece clave a toda discusión sobre ciencia e ideología: que no se ha de definir a los científicos como aquellas personas que hacen ciencia, sino a la ciencia como aquello que hacen los científicos. Así, la ciencia no es un ente puro que se desarrolla en abstracto alejada de todo sesgo, sino que se convierte en el producto de personas: personas con sesgos, ideología y agenda propia. No adoptan una postura relativista, sino que parten de la base de que los estudios y las interpretaciones que se hacen a día de hoy tienen una base ideológica que hay que analizar de cara a poder superar las limitaciones que puedan conllevar.

El libro hace una breve introducción al origen de la ciencia y al contexto histórico en el que surge. De ahí, se lanza a tratar varios temas polémicos, tratando su origen histórico e intentando resaltar la ideología subyacente a la visión mainstream: el cociente intelectual, el control social mediante genética, las enfermedades mentales, el patriarcado, la raza y la clase. Esto se hace desde una perspectiva dialéctica y no reduccionista, haciendo hincapié en la crítica a la separación metafísica entre individuo y ambiente. Aunque la mayoría de la exposición está centrada en desmontar las afirmaciones biologicistas más comunes, tiene mucho cuidado en no caer en el determinismo cultural o en el post-modernismo, haciendo crítica explícita de los fallos de esa escuela.

A pesar de que han pasado cerca de 30 años desde la publicación del libro (y de que por tanto hay mucho más material que analizar a día de hoy), creo que ha envejecido de la mejor forma posible. Lo recomendaría a cualquier persona con interés en introducirse a la filosofía de la ciencia.

[Simon B · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The claim that 'human nature' guarantees that inherited differences between individuals and groups will be translated into a hierarchy of status, wealth, and power completes the total ideology of biological determinism."

.

A very thoughtful and readable critique of biological determinism and reductionism in science. It's quite an old book now (published in 1984) but the ideological tendencies it covers so thoroughly are still very much alive today. It shreds the notion that genetic differences explain or justify inequalities between races, sexes or classes. It has very good chapters that examine the baselessness of IQ tests and how reductionist science has warped the treatment of mental illnesses. Not in our Genes also delivers some satisfying academic takedowns of Richard Dawkin's "selfish gene" and E.O. Wilson's "sociobiology" - two of the most famed examples of biological determinism whose influence endures today.

One of the book's greatest strengths was how it does not settle for merely debunking biological determinism. It also makes strong critiques of the kinds of cultural determinism, dualism, or 'interactionism' that are often posed as alternatives. In the authors' view the entire "nature vs nurture" debate that has plagued biology, sociology, ecology and many other disciplines is a trap, an debilitating misconception. Instead they advocate a dialectical understanding, in which organisms and environments are recognised to be interpenetrative and co-constitutive. Organisms create their own environment and are also modified by it. That is:

"... all organisms - but especially human beings - are not simply the results but are also the causes of their own environments. Development, and certainly human psychic development, must be regarded as a codevelopment of the organism and its environment, for mental states have an effect on the external world through human conscious action."

[Åsmund Mikalsen Kvifte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boka er eit biologisk åtak på sosiobiologi og biologisk determinisme. Når ulike krefter hevder at ymse trekk i personlegheitane våre eller samfunna våre er biologisk funderte, er det som regel på basis av ideologi og politiske førestillingar heller enn vitskap.

Mykje av dei biologiske forklåringane på samfunnsfenomen har meir til felles med «korleis bjørnen fekk kort hale» enn naturvitskap.

Dei vitskaplege resultata som finst, er oftast resultat av elendige forsøksoppsett. Når biologien skal forklåra den arten me trass alt bryr oss mest om, vert krava til vitskapleg metode og reiderlegheit drastisk lægre. Eg meiner det helst krava burde vore høgre. Men då hadde ikkje sosiobiologane kunna prova at menneskja helst skal ha patriarkalske, klassedelte og framandfiendtlege samfunn...

Forfattarane går heller ikkje i fella at alt er kultur, eller at alt kan delast inn med éin kulturell og éin biologisk del av forklåringa. Dei meiner dette er komplisert, og tilrår ein materialistisk dialektisk framgangsmåte.

Sjølv om boka vart skriven på 1980-talet,er ho framleis aktuell. Me finn framleis folk som brukar sosiobiologien og liknande, då må me vita at grunnlaget er tullpreik heller enn å tru at det er seriøs vitskap brukt på ein dårleg måte.

Mange av dei som diskuterer kjønn i dag, hadde nok hatt godt av å tenkja gjennom det boka her har å seia.

Sjølv tykkjer eg boka var god å lesa, tidvis svært underhaldande og lærerikt fagstoff.

[Matthew Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not in Our Genes offers a penetrating critique of certain assumptions we have about how much of who we are is determined by our genetics. This book also examines how our understanding of genetics has been molded by certain ideologies, and perpetuated through deeply flawed studies and misinformation to serve those ideologies.

This is an academic work, and the discussions of biological determinism often assume the reader can handle some philosophical terminology the authors don't have space to explain. I would suggest keeping a dictionary handy for this one. Still, if you are up for a book that will challenge the way you think about heredity, IQ, the nature/nurture question, and the reliability of scientific evidence, this vintage paperback is well worth purchasing.

[Joe Xtarr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I approached this book with the understanding that I was already 75% in favor of its conclusions, so my review may not be relevant to its authors' effectiveness. However, even biasing heavily towards its thesis, I did gain some valuable pieces of knowledge to keep at the ready in my brain bank. If nothing else, you'll learn the common arguments and counter-arguments of this subject, and can expand upon them as you see fit. For such a complex topic, the authors made easy work of keeping it simple and accessible. Definitely read this.

[Mary Karpel-Jergic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was compulsory reading for my psychology degree at the time and one of the texts that transformed my thinking. It was a great juxtaposition to biological determinism and although I am now, funnily enough, a fan of Steven Pinker I cannot bear to part with this book in case I need reminding of some of their brilliant argument.

[Conor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book, challenging the claims of sociobiology and IQ studies head-on and highlighting the political aspects of science that claims to be objective but is as politicised as hell!

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A CRITIQUE OF BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISM BY THREE SCIENTISTS

The authors of this 1984 book wrote in the Preface, “The authors… are respectively an evolutionary geneticist, a neurobiologist, and a psychologist… we have watched with concern the rising tide of biological determinist writing, with its increasingly grandiose claims to be able to locate the causes of the inequalities of status, wealth, and power between classes, genders, and races in Western society in a reductionist theory of human nature… We share a commitment to the prospect of the creation of a more socially just---a socialist---society. And we recognize that a critical science is an integral part of the struggle to create that society, just as we also believe that the social function of much of today’s science is to hinder the creation of that society by acting to preserve the interests of the dominant class, gender, and race. This belief… is why we have each… been involved in the development of what has become known … as the radical science movement. The need was, we felt, for a systematic exploration of the scientific and social roots of biological determinism, an analysis of its present-day social functions, and an exposure of its scientific pretensions… it was also necessary to offer a perspective on what biology and psychology can offer as an alternative, liberatory, view of the ‘nature of human nature.’”

They state, “Biological determinism is, then, a reductionist explanation of human life in which the arrows of causality run from genes to humans and from human to humanity. But it is more than mere explanation: It is politics. For if human social organization, including the inequalities of status, wealth, and power, are a direct consequences of our biologies, then… no practice can make a significant social alteration of social structure or of the position of individuals or groups within it.” (Pg. 18)

They observe, “The convergence of the two meanings of inheritance---the social and the biological---legitimizes the passage of social power from generation to generation. It can still be asserted that we have an equal opportunity society with each individual rising or falling in the social scale according to merit, provided we understand that merit is carried in the genes. The notion of inheritance in human behavior and therefore of social position …. can thus be understood … as a consistently worked out position to explain the facts of bourgeois society.” (Pg. 72)

They acknowledge, “What [E.O.] Wilson, [Richard] Dawkins, or [R.] Trivers write about sociobiology reflects their interests in advancing their own social position. What we write reflects ours.” (Pg. 76)

They state, “IQ tests… have not been designed from the principles of some general theory of intelligence and subsequently shown to be independently a predictor of social success. On the contrary, they have been empirically adjusted and standardized to correlate well with school performance, while the notion that they measure ‘intelligence’ is added on with no independent justification to validate them. Indeed, we do not know what that mysterious quality ‘intelligence’ is.” (Pg. 90)

They note, “Rather than picking out the genes that are the most different or the most similar between [racial] groups, what do we see if we pick genes at random?... In this random sample of genes there is a remarkable similarity between groups… Such a result would lead us to conclude that the genetic difference between blacks and whites is negligible as compared with the polymorphism within each group.” (Pg. 123-124)

They point out, “The problem of what one means by a ‘race’ comes out forcibly when making such assignments. Are the Hungarians Europeans? They certainly LOOK European, yet they (like the Finns) speak a language that is totally unrelated to European languages and belongs to the Turkish family… And what about the modern-day Turks? Are they Europeans, or should they be lumped with the Mongoloids? And then there are the Urdu- and Hindi-speaking people of India. They are the descendants of a mixture of Aryan invaders from the from the north, the Persians from the west, and the Vedic tribes of the Indian subcontinent… No group is more hybrid than the present-day Europeans, who are a mixture of Huns, Ostrogoths, and Vandals from the east, Arabs from the south, and Indo-Europeans from the Caucasus. In practice, ‘racial’ categories are established that correspond to major skin color groups, and all the borderline cases are distributed among these of made into new races according to the whim of the scientist.” (Pg. 126)

They suggest, “We must be more modest. We do not know the limits that biology sets to the forms of human nature, and we have no way of knowing. We cannot predict the inevitability of patriarchy, or capitalism, from the cellular structure of our brains, the composition of our circulating hormones, or the physiology of sexual reproduction. And it is this radical unpredictability that is at the core of our critique of biological determinism.” (Pg. 161-162)

They argue, “The central assertion of sociobiology is that human social behavior is, in some sense, coded in the genes. Yet… up to the present time no one has ever been able to relate any aspect of human social behavior to any particular gene or set of genes, and no one has ever suggested an experimental plan for doing so. Thus, all statements about the genetic basis of human social traits are necessarily purely speculative.” (Pg. 251)

They acknowledge, “We are at a severe disadvantage. Unlike the biological determinists who have simple, even simplistic, views of the bases and forms of human existence, we do not pretend to know what a correct description of all human societies, nor can we explain all criminal behavior, wars, family organization, and property relations as manifestations of one simple mechanism. Rather, our view is that the relation between gene, environment, organism, and society is complex in a way not encompassed by simple reductionist argument.” (Pg. 266)

They summarize, “The point of this survey … is that all organisms---but especially human beings---are not simply the results of but are also the causes of their own environments. Development, and certainly human psychic development, must be regarded as a codevelopment of the organism and its environment, for mental states have an effect on the external world through human conscious action. While it may be true that at some instant the environment poses a problem of challenge to the organism, in the process of response to that challenge the organism alters the terms of its relation to the outer world and recreates the relevant aspects of that world. The relation between organism and environment is not simply one of interaction of internal and external factors, but of a dialectical development of organism and milieu in response to each other.” (Pg. 275)

This book will be of keen interest to those studying the nature/nurture, “biological predeterminism” debates and discussions.

[Emma Signe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Min allra mest trösterika bok! Den publicerades 1984 och är ett svar på Richard Dawkins, sociobiologin och den biologiska determinismen och dess växande framgång då - men det känns ruskigt politiskt relevant idag med. Nästa gång jag behöver höra att det ligger i Människans Natur att vara hierarkisk eller föra krig eller vara patriarkalisk eller vad fan det nu är, ska jag blunda och i huvvet frammana vad den här boken lärt mig.

Om man inte är biologinörd med en passion för dialektik och Marx behöver man kanske inte läsa boken pärm till pärm, men jag rekommenderar avsnittet med kritik mot IQ som jag lärde mig massa av: Intelligenskvoterna och rangordnandet. Ojämlikhetens rättfärdigande och Det naturgivna patriarkatet är också mkt bra kapitel.

En viktig liten bok om vetenskap och ideologi.

[Steven · Rating 1 out of 5]

A failed attempt at breathing some life into the failed political anthropology of the authors. Maybe this would work on a 19 year old undergrad who is an enlightened centrist, or "not dumb like the Trump supporters!", but it doesn't work on adults who've actually read the "big doo doo head biologists". The 4 laws of behavior genetics are just another line of argumentation against that side of politics. No wonder they criticize someone who was big into consilience...

A potemkin village for the philosophy of biology, if you will...

[Sanabel Atya · Rating 4 out of 5]

كالعادة..مثل هذه الكتب تأخذ من وقتي الكثير

مغزى الكتاب –كما أرى- إثبات سُخف البيولوجية الحتمية عند تطبيقها على البشر، وإثبات أن البشر متأثرون بجيناتهم وبالبيئة المحيطة بهم، ومُؤثرون بالبيئة في المقابل. وهذه هي حقائق العلم اليوم.

تعليقي...

فلتسقط الحتمية البيولوجية، والحتمية الثقافية أيضاً. ويا لسخف علماء القرن الماضي-رغم ما قدموه لنا-
استغلوا البيولوجية الحتمة والقائلة بأن الطبيعة البشرية مثبتة بجيناتنا، بأن مارسوا العنصرية بين الأبيض وغيره من البشر،على أساس أن غير البيض هم اقل ذكاء، وما إلى ذلك من هذا الهراء الذي نعرف!
ولن أنسى أقول أن نظرية البيولوجيا الحتمية صحيحة مع كل الكائنات الحية، باسثناء البشر.

لا أعلم كيف أن علماء القرون الماضية كانوا مُغيّبين أم أنهم عنصريون حتى الثمالة...لإسقاط كافة ممارسات الارستقراطيين والبرجوازيين والسياسيين العنصرية على الجينات !!!

ولا أعلم كيف أن الأطباء في علم النفس قد وصل بهم الأمر لتطبيق "جراحة نفسية" على بعض المرضى النفسيين، والتي تعني "جراحة دماغية، للدماغ،للمخ" فقط لأجل شفائهم من مرض، أو التقليل أو الحدّ من سلوكهم الشائن !!! حقاً لقد صُدمت!
وحمداً لله، أنّ العلم قابل للتغيير وغير ثابت، وإلا لما وصلنا لما نحن عليه الآن. من "انخفاض أو انعدام" –لا استطيع الجزم :) - للعنصرية.

لا أُنكر، بالرغم من أن حصيلتي من الكتاب كانت " أن البشر متأثرون بجيناتهم وبالبيئة المحيطة بهم، ومُؤثرون بالبيئة في المقابل" وأنا أعلمها مُسبقاً، إلا أنني قد تعرفتُ على ما كان يعتقده العلماء قبل الوصول لهذه الحقيقة، عرفتُ –ولأول مرة- كم أن أصحاب المراكز العليا بشعون لدرجة استغلال العلم لتحقيق مطامعهم السياسية أو حتى الطبقية.
بالرغم من الملل الذي اعتراني.. إلا أنها كانت تجربة رائعة بكل الاحوال.

[Ian Pitchford · Rating 3 out of 5]

The central critique of this book is that many of the proponents of the predictive value of IQ testing really seek to establish "a rank ordering of the world" such that,

1. There are differences in status, wealth and power;
2. These differences are consequences of different intrinsic ability, especially different "intelligence";
3. IQ tests are instruments that measure this intrinsic ability;
4. Differences in intelligence are largely the result of genetic differences between individuals;
5. Because they are the result genetic differences, differences are fixed and unchangeable;
6. Because most of the differences between individuals in ability are genetic, the differences between races and classes are also genetic and unchangeable.

This critique is largely accurate, but unfortunately the authors extend it (against the advice given to them by Noam Chomsky) to the entirety of sociology and later to evolutionary psychology. Although sloppy and ideological work can be found in both of these disciplines there must be some plausible account of human nature in terms of evolution by natural selection and works such as this should not seek to obscure that fact.

[Karim Kadry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Controversial, Daring, a bit too extreme at some points
But still a good read

[James Lingford · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect guide to how biology can be (and has been) used to justify racist and inegalitarian ideologies.

[Robin Cunninghame Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully clear explanation of how evolutionary biology and sociobiology are political rather than scientific and an honest appraisal of just what science can prove.

[Joshua Valentine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mostly had no problems with this book, and felt that most of what the authors were trying to argue was presented in a compelling manner. I was surprised how subtle the Marxist influences were - I had to really reflect on what I read to try and understand how communism, and Marxist philosophy more specifically, influenced the book. It made sense in the end - the core feature of "workers owning the means of production" is essentially not being defined by a single source of influence, some archaic force that isn't unbreakable, similar to the notions of biological and cultural determinism. I think this was a unique contrast to the capitalist-rooted determinism of sociobiology at the time. I also felt the case made earlier-on that much of sociobiology literature was contaminated by issues such as experimenter-expectation, stereotyped interpretations, and weak scientific links between abstract social constructs, was well made. I do think one of the limitations of the book is its age - as a product of its time, it serves as a well-developed antithesis to dominant perspectives at the time on social behavior. Still, the notion that sociobiology-adjacent research is strictly biologically-determined nature perspectively is outdated. I do think an inclination toward generalized, nature-invoking "just-so" stories is still common, and is definitely illustrated perfectly in this book.

[Jenny Chen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buku ini meng-counter biologi deterministik dan reduksionisme baik dari segi metodologi maupun ideologi dengan gagasan biologi dialektis.

Membuka cakrawala pemikiran kita bahwa nggak seperti yang dikatakan oleh para apologisnya kapitalisme bahwa secara alami manusia itu serakah dan selfish dan kita nggak mungkin bisa mengubah itu: sebuah pandangan yg digaungkan oleh Richard Dawkins lewat "Shelfish Genes" Nya dan juga filusuf borjuasi David Hume.

Gagasan sentral dari buku ini adalah bahwa gen tidak sama dengan manusia. Oleh karenanya tidak ada yg namanya gen selfish atau gen homosex atau gen serakah.

Bahwa sifat dan behavior manusia nggak bisa direduksi menjadi sekadar gen karena behavior manusia ditentukan oleh kondisi sosial, ekonomi, politik, dan above all pada mode produksi yang berlaku dalam masyarakat di mana manusia bersangkutan hidup.

Demikian juga dengan evolusi, buku ini berpandangan bahwa evolusi terjadi bukan dengan makhluk hidup yang statis beradaptasi dengan lingkungan yg dinamis, melainkan keduanya bergerak dinamis.

Jadi, baik makhluk hidup maupun lingkungan saling membentuk dan saling dibentuk.

Overall, buku ini sangat informative. Ditulis oleh pakar biologi lulusan dari berbagai universitas ternama di dunia.

[jeannn]

Self ref: to read, for following: QUOTE: The view misses the point that "slavery" does not exist in ants. Slavery is a form of production of economic surplus, and slaves are a form of capital. Ants know neither commodities nor capital investment nor rates of interest nor the relative advantage to industrial capital of a free labor market. While sociobiologists inherited royalty and slavery in ants from nineteenth-century entomology, they have made the false metaphor a device of their own. Aggression, warfare, cooperation, kinship, loyalty, coyness, rape, cheating, culture are all applied to nonhuman animals. Human manifestations then come to be seen as special, perhaps more developed, cases. Money is "a quantification of reciprocal altruism," and "the biological formula of territorialism translates easily into rituals of modern property ownership. ...

[Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a very thoughtful and careful rebuttal to biological determinism in general and claims regarding the genetic bases for social stratification in particular. The author's break down what they see as patently poor science providing the foundation for deterministic arguments about race and gender inequality while recognizing that these arguments also happen to happily support a status quo that benefits the predominately white and male pro-determinists and much of their readership.

The book ends on what might be termed a scholarly meditation on the nature free will that is at least as useful as anything analytic philosophy has offered on the subject.

This book is good and has been re-released at just about the perfect time.

[Germán González · Rating 4 out of 5]

En este libro de 1984, Lewontin y compañía hacen una crítica contundente del determinismo y la sociobiología. El debate "nurture vs nature" (innato vs adquirido) ha atravesado a la biología durante siglos, y aunque actualmente es casi un consenso que existe una interacción entre genes y ambiente, sigue siendo un tema álgido.

El libro es una postura desde un lugar más filosófico e ideológico que metodólogico. Se crítica al determinismo biológico desde una postura de izquierda, por considerarlo una validación del pensamiento libertario que ensalza el individualismo. Es muy radical en muchas de sus posturas (y algunas han sido rebatidas en estos 30 años posteriores) pero es un ejercicio muy interesante para pensar y discutir cosas que a veces uno da por sentadas.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Old, archaic science. Richard Lewontin is a well-known, self-proclaimed Marxist geneticist, but in this book he makes arguments that just don't stand today. He tries to argue against biologically-determined sex-based differences. He tries to deny that IQ is heritable. His arguments are also quite fallacious.

Here is an example: "But how important are averages anyway? The fact that today on average men are taller than women does not deny that many women are taller than many men. Average statements about populations are only made post hoc, that is, after we have decided on the definition of the populations being described. Thus, before we can describe differences between men and women we have to define the two populations —male and female—to be compared."

[Leoni Gioti · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me some time to get to it. I loved the writing and I enjoyed the lesson in critical approach to scientific work and its interpretation and impact onto society. It would be really nice to read something concise and critical about the current state of the issues covered in this book, especially ADHD and schizophrenia. It was also interesting to read this while the Handmaid's tale series is discussed, as it deals with a lot of the arguments for 'why biology dictates patriarchy' of the period prior to the writing of Atwood's book.

[Ali Al-ismail · Rating 4 out of 5]

الكتاب هذا يقدم نقاط جديدة ضد عشاق التفسيرات البيولوجية لتصرفات البشر. كثير من النقاط اللي يقدمها شبيهة إلى حد ما بكتاب ستيفن جاي قولد The Mismeasure of Man، خصوصًا في الأجزاء المتعلقة باختبارات الذكاء.

المميز في هذا الكتاب أنه ينتقد التفسيرات البيولوجية (والبيئية بعد) بشكل عام مو في نقطة وحدة فقط. يبين الكتاب كيف أن النظرة السائدة بأن البيولوجي تحدد نسبة من الصفة، بينما البيئة تحدد النسبة المتبقية، نظرة مغلوطة من وجهة نظر بيولوجية. صفات البشر ليست فقط نتيجة لعوامل منفصلة مثل البيئة والبيولوجي، إنما هي نتيجة للتداخلات الفريدة بين هذي العوامل. معاملة كل منها على حدة ينتج نظرة ناقصة.