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Title: Biology as Ideology : Doctrine of DNA, The by Richard C. Lewontin ISBN: 0-06-097519-9 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 13 January, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (12 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: A Nice Propaganda Piece
Comment: This book claims that there is no such thing as race. While this would be nice, unfortunatly that is just not the case. Scientists can take a drop of blood and determine if its owner is Asian, African-American, European, Jewish, etc. If there is no such thing as race, then how is this possible?
This book was used in a biased anthropology class that I took for my BA. I only bought it because I was forced to.
Rating: 5
Summary: My Genes Made Me Do It
Comment: Author Lewontin, a Harvard geneticist, presents his case against biological determinism, and for a form of social constructionism. Don't stop reading this review if the first sentence caused your eyes to glaze over. You don't need to understand those terms. RCL is simply saying that our social environment is more important than our genetic structure.
And, no, this book is not about Marxist ideas as one reviewer wrote. One is not a marxist because one supports environmental affects on society. He is not spouting Marxism when he suggests that society is responsible for many diseases, and not microbes. Tuberculosis had greatly declined by the early twentieth century, not because of vaccination, but because living conditions and nutrition had improved. The ultimate cause of some cancers is not so much the proximate cause of pollution, but the society that has decided that pollution in the air is acceptable in furthering our society.
Our society is not based on the total genetic activity of its members. First of all there aren't enough genes to begin to determine the billions of circuits in the brain, many of which aren't constructed until after birth. We become individuals in a society. The two most common ways in which children are similar to their parents relate to religion and politics. Are we then to say that there is a Baptist gene, or a Republican gene?
Lewontin believes that the genome project(s) will not fulfill the promises currently being made. His social constructionist beliefs (that science is culturally determined) must be given some credence when he states that no prominent geneticist of his acquaintance is free of a financial interest in these projects. We also cannot assume that mapping the genome of an individual will result in a set of genes that we can accept as a normal reference. You, the reader, and I may be very normal human beings, but our genes differ by about 3 million nucleotides.
The author also states that organisms create their environment; they do not react passively to their surroundings. There is no such thing as a environmental balance he says. 99.99% of all beings that existed are now extinct. The environment has always been in a state of continual flux. He points out that many organisms have had a negative effect on the environment. The beaver, for example, is notorious for its destruction of its surroundings.
A very thought provoking book. I read it through twice which was easy to do because of its 128 page length. You do not need to accept all of his ideas, but he sure stimulates your neurons to form some new connections.
Rating: 5
Summary: Biology As Ideology : The Doctrine of DNA
Comment: This book will cause you to think in new ways, even if you don't agree with the author. Lewontin's main point is that despite the fact we think science is an objective discipline, its questions topics considered worth researching are in fact biased by the culture in which we live. It's an interesting concept to ponder for those interested in philosophy, science, or the philosophy of science.
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Title: The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment by Richard C. Lewontin ISBN: 0674006771 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: November, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: It Ain't Necessarily So: The Dream of the Human Genome and Other Illusions by Richard C. Lewontin ISBN: 0940322951 Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Dialectical Biologist by Richard Levins, Richard C. Lewontin ISBN: 067420283X Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 1987 List Price(USD): $26.50 |
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Title: The Ontogeny of Information: Developmental Systems and Evolution by Susan Oyama, Richard C. Lewontin ISBN: 0822324660 Publisher: Duke Univ Pr (Txt) Pub. Date: May, 2000 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Silicon Second Nature: Culturing Artificial Life in a Digital World by Stefan Helmreich ISBN: 0520208005 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: June, 2000 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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