Customer Reviews

Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

This book is exactly what the title implies - a treatise on how many people in the scientific community (including physical and social science) and in the general public have come to regard biology, or more specifically DNA, as The Answer. Just as religion had The Answer in previous ages, so now, we "know" that all the answers lie in understanding our DNA. This has spread to all aspects of human society, from justification of our capitalist monetary system to modern medicine. To emphasise the point, a quote from the text: "[An] editor of Science, what asked why the Human Genome Project funds should not be given instead to the homeless, answered, 'What these people don't realise is that the homeless are impaired.... Indeed, no group would benefit more from the application of human genetics.'"

This is a chilling statement, and we're fortunate to have books like these pointing out the ethical and scientific problems in such pronouncements. Prof. Lewontin debunks the myth that DNA is the be all and end all. In a wide ranging series of essays, he attacks the claims of the Human Genome Project scientists (I want to point out that he does not attack the science itself, which is fine, simply the rationale in doing it) and others who are trying to find a panacea in understanding genetics. He argues that while DNA is important, it does not define what it means to be human, any more than a pile of bricks defines a house, and it certainly can't be used to justify capitalism, fascism, or anarchical government systems, as claimed by some political philosophers. Or that people are homeless because they have defective DNA.

There are two minor points that I must make objection to. The first is that he seems to imply that scientists (specifically, those working on the human genome) make wild claims as to how much their research will benefit mankind, and society is duped into believing them. While this is undoubtedly the case some of the time, in my experience, the media often exaggerate the claims of scientists to make a better story. "This project will help us understand cancer better, and will lead to better treatments" becomes "Cause of cancer discovered!" Lewontin tends to blame the scientist entirely for these grandiose claims. Secondly, I believe basic research is valuable, thus the Genome Project is important, something Lewontin doesn't seem to want to admit.

Those two points aside, however, this is an interesting and important book, if a little one-sided. Highly recommended.

Despite some shortcomings, I was thoroughly impressed by this book that I read it two times in a row. I also chose to base a school project on it. I am quite convinced that "Biology as Ideology" might actually have been one of the most important books of the previous century (Yes, I mentioned this in my project). And although it is atypical of me to comment on other people's reviews, some things just warrant correction. Contrary to what one reviewer said, Lewontin never once suggests that "there is no such thing as race" in this book. And although Lewontin has a thing or to two to say about reductionism - - he does not completely resent it. He talks about an ideal view "that sees the entire world neither as an indissoluble whole, or as isolated bits and pieces". It's easy to miss this message because Lewontin does tend to have a propensity for veering off-topic once in a while. I also don't think that it's far-fetched at all to call Lewontin a Marxist. Although he only mentions Karl Marx once in this book, most of his views on society strongly cohere with Marx's.

In our world today, any product of science is claimed and treated as a universal truth. Lewontin encourages the reader not to be mystified by science (don't just leave it to the experts!) And science has never been as "objective" and "nonpolitical" as it claims because it's a product of society. Scientists will view nature through lens molded by social experience.

I thought it daring (and brave) that Lewontin - a luminary in the study of genetics today - should question Darwin's "natural selection", and see more sense in Lamarck's inheritance of acquired characteristics. This book is good because it makes you observe the other side of things. It makes you think.

Perhaps the most excellent point made by Lewontin in his book is that of biological determinism as a way of social legitimization. Biological determinism has been used to explain and justify the inequalities within and between societies and to claim that those inequalities can never be changed. We are being taught that there is genetic differentiation between racial groups in characteristics such as behavior, temperament, and intelligence. We are also being taught that people's genes are connected to things like unemployment, eroticism, dominance, poverty, and homelessness. It really getting ridiculous! There is too much power being blunderingly put on the DNA molecule.

I however, disagree with Lewontin that the genome project was a waste of time and billions. It has helped not only consolidate the theory of evolution...but it has also helped in areas like systematics, phylogeny, and taxonomy. Another shortcoming is that Lewontin's book is more than a decade old - many discoveries and advancements have occurred since then in molecular genetics.

Dick did it again. Richard "Dick" Lewontin, one of the most esteemed (or hated, depending on the viewpoint) geneticists of our era has written yet another controversial, highly readable, and thoroughly enjoyable, book. A booklet, to be sure, fruit of a series of radio broadcasts for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is an agile group of six chapters, spanning a mere 128 pages including a scanty bibliography. But you're in for an intense if short intellectual ride that you won't easily forget. Lewontin starts with a very wide brush, asking nothing less than the fundamental question: what is science? He begins with a theme dear to him and brought to the forefront of modern philosophy by the classical book of Thomas Kuhn about scientific revolutions: science is always a product of the society that generates it, and therefore that society needs to be understood and considered in order to comprehend both science's progress and mistakes. According to Lewontin, science has two functions: 1. It allows us to manipulate the world; 2. It provides an explanation for the world. Obviously, the two are related to some extent (you can hardly manipulate - at least safely and successfully - something which you don't understand, or not?). Nevertheless they are in principle, and often enough in practice, distinct. But not necessarily in the sense you might think. Lewontin makes the interesting and provocative argument that some major progress in applied science is made without the corresponding understanding of the underlying principles, in flagrant opposition to what most scientists (and your high school teacher) would tell you. For example, we obtained better and better varieties of crop plants literally centuries ahead of any scientific understanding of the principles of heredity and the birth of modern genetics. Nevertheless, modern applied genetics gets its legitimation from the impressive body of knowledge we have accumulated about the way cells, chromosomes, and DNA works. Lewontin's almost subversive conclusions stemming from this premise is that modern science has taken over the role that used to be the realm of institutionalized religion throughout antiquity and the middle ages. Scientists, like modern priests, endorse the status quo of modern society, being able to reassure the public that things are going well on the basis of the fact that science does have a tremendous explanatory power, very much like religion use to (in other words, we know what we're talking about...). And here is where the problem lies, according to Lewontin: see, you (science) can't be at the same time claiming to represent a universal truth that transcends human society and be a result of that very society. To put it into another fashion, you can't have the cake and eat it too! Now, before you start seeing every scientist as a member of a secret society of conspirators devoted to the ultimate control of the planet and unleash your James Bonds on every campus, beware. Lewontin clearly states that most, if not every, scientist, are not actually conscious of the role they have and the power they excercise, in the same way in which priests and cardinals defended the status quo during the Inquisition because they really believed they were the repository for the only universal truth, not because they conspired in the labyrinths of the Vatican... (this notwithstanding what some Americans might think of the Pope). What are the foundations of such a tremendously effective tool such as modern science? There are two that clearly stand out according to the author: reductionism and the clear distinction between cause and effect. Reductionism, which basically traces back to the writings of the 17th century French philosopher Rene` Descartes, is the assumption that complex systems can be understood entirely in terms of their minutest components. As Lewontin puts it, societies are the result of individuals, not viceversa. Think about it, it requires a bit of intellectual effort to see the point that in fact the relationship between societies and individuals is a dialectical one, a perennial chicken and egg process. But when you do the gestaltic switch, it really grows on you... The clear relationship between cause and effect is epitomized by the classical assumption in evolutionary biology that organisms "respond" to the environment, as if they were not part and creator of their own environment. The environment is supposed to be the cause of evolution, and the change that occurs in populations and species is the effect of these pressures. But, as we know now, the environment itself can be greatly affected by organisms. And I'm not thinking of relatively recent phenomena such as human-induced global warming. If you're breathing oxygen today, this is entirely because some microscopic relative of modern algae "invented" photosynthesis a couple of billion years ago. The world didn't know free oxygen up to that point, but it just so happens that the precious substance is a "waste" byproduct of the reactions that make up the process of photosynthesis, the major way of making a living for most algae and plants. The alternative to this mechanistic worldview, of course, is known as holism. But this word has very negative connotations, which are intertwined with mysticism and irrational beliefs. And here is the challenge that Lewontin and some of his colleagues - chiefly Stephen Jay Gould, also at Harvard - have faced for most of their active lives as scientists. How to debunk reductionism without falling into a vague and fruitless alternative; how to retain the power of scientific inquiry while acknowledging its limits; how to maintain the public confidence of science's power while asking them to keep an eye on the assumptions that scientists make about the world. I'm afraid you'll have to read the book to know the rest; hopefully, the above ranting has at least tickled your intellect enough to do just that. And I can guarantee you that your view of the world would be changed forever... or maybe not.

The chief thing that this book revealed is how deeply and dishonestly political much of the so-called present day research into such glamor- and profit-making areas as the genome project really is. The book is only a sketch because of the format : scripts for radio broadcasts, but Lewontin manages to provide for non-scentists like myself a series of wonderful insights into the way that social, cultural and much more important, political forces shape the conduct of that research. The science students at the college where I taught for 30 years know very little about all this, and yet it is crucial. The political values have become domesticate and are all but invisible. And if Lewontin is wrong it is imporetant for students to understand why. There is a distinction between honest science, to which neither the author nor I have any objection. What needs to be pointed out is all the self-serving humbug from the pharmaceutical companies (with the aid of government agencies) use to achieve their ends. Lewontin does that. The wonder is that he is so mild about it. It is one of the most disturbing symptoms of rampant capitalism and it needs to questioned at every turn. His account of the complexity of genome research and of the impossibility of finding THE genetic cause for such things as cancer and (lord help us!) "aggresssion" is very judiciously argued. A really splendid introduction to an important topic.

If you are looking for a clear and critical overview of modern genetics research, one which cuts through all the hype and misinformation, then read this book. Lewontin, a Harvard University geneticist and skeptic, has collated six of his radio lectures given to increase public understanding of what research programmes like the Human Genome Project really mean. The Genome Project is a vast undertaking which aims to map every single gene in the human body. Claims, even by the experts, about what this will mean for humanity have been superlative to say the least. Medicine will essentially cease to exist since it will be far better to fix the gene causing a disorder than to prescribe drugs for it. Currently incurable diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's, Huntington's and almost any other you care to mention will become curable. Cosmetic gene-replacement therapy for poor eye sight, hearing loss, and baldness are possible, and even social problems such as violent crime, alcoholism, and anti-social behaviour can be treated just as soon as we localise the relevant genes - or so the story goes. Lewontin dispels two myths central to the Human Genome Project and the gene-replacement paradigm. First the relationship between genes and disease is just not that simple, and second, there is no evidence whatever that every human ill has a corresponding gene or set of genes anyway.

The potential of the Human Genome Project to better our lives is substantial, but it is certainly no panacea. We must be aware of the risks and limitations as well as the benefits of any new technology, especially one which acts directly on the genes which make us all who we are.

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.

This, intellectual tornado, with its incisive and biting logic and its eloquent, economic and clear style, rips through all the trees of the scientific forest -- especially those used as its primary unstated skeletal backbone: the structure of often vulgar, sometimes illogical, but always erroneous and well-hidden, built-in assumptions.

Included in this list is the Holy Grail of them all: the reductionist hypothesis that only discrete atomic elements matter; the equally false idea (most popularly exposed by T.S. Khun) that science is somehow above politics and ideology; and the worse of the offenders: the false dichotomies between "cause and effect" and between "nature and nurture."

In this menu, in which the intellectual cup runneth over, the author does not just take a swipe at them all, but gores them by running a level four tornado right through their hearts. When he is finished not a tree in the false underbelly of science is left standing, not a false hidden assumption left without being up-rooted: all the hidden assumptions are exposed, and the emperor is found to have no clothes; humpty-dumpty is knocked cleanly off the wall.

Since this CBC honor lecture, the "Ideology of Biology" will never again be the same because Dr. Lewontin has shook it at its very foundation and it has been found wanting: its soft, often intentional underbelly, finally has been exposed and left on the intellectual trash heap of history for future students and scholars to sort out and to assess the damage, and to try and put Humpty-dumpty together again.

Whatever that assessment may be, the pseudo-science of genetic and biological determinism, whose poison continues to wreak havoc in American society, even six decades after Adolph Hitler, will never be the same again. Fifty stars

Some interesting and original points are made but the factual and interpretational flaws many times outweigh the insights. Lewontin attributes an exaggerated ideological influence on the scientific community (possibly concluding from his own strong political nature). This review reads as a critique of the representative points:
Lewontin writes, "What Darwin did was take early 19th century political economy and expand it to include all of natural economy" (p.10). However, while it is well known that Darwin was impressed by Malthus' reasoning on geometrical increase of populations, this does not imply he adopted or expanded on the social, ethical or executive conclusions of some form of capitalist economy. As Darwin wrote somewhere, "It is not the strongest nor even the most intelligent species that will survive, but those most responsive to change." Perhaps Lewontin feels some resentment as he writes in the same paragraph: "Darwin... earned his living from investment in shares he followed daily...".
When portraying the biological world view, Lewontin writes "Genes make individuals and individuals make society, and so genes make society. If one society is different from another, that is because the genes..."(p.14)
This is evidently a caricature of the 'Dawkins' point of view. There clearly different forms of governance and economic systems that humans can create, which still conform to their basic natures, even if this nature is genetically influenced and shared.
Lewontin writes "There is at present no convincing measure of the roles of genes in influencing human behavioral variation."(p.33, where he also discusses IQ and twin studies) and "we know nothing about the heritability of human temperamental and intellectual traits."(p.96). However, that seems to be an ill-informed reading of the evidence, even for the time the book was written, early 1990's.
Lewontin writes, "Sociobiology is the latest and most mystified attempt to convince people that human life is pretty much what it has to be and perhaps even ought to be."(p.89) It seems he has fallen here onto the 'naturalistic fallacy' and I don't think even E.O Wilson alluded to that in his writings.
Lewontin continues, "Sociobiological theory claims that all human beings share genes for aggression, for xenophobia, for male dominance, and so on. But if we all share these genes, if evolution has made us all alike in this human nature, then in principle there would be no way to investigate the heritability of those traits... (but) if there is variation then on what basis... is (this) universal human nature." But has Lewontin not contemplated the logical possibility that we share genes that differentially affect measures of tendencies for these traits, with small variation relative to their mean?
The next point concerns one hot button: "It must be remembered that the nonreproductive homosexuals must help their brothers and sisters so well that those relatives have twice as many offspring as usual..."(p.103)
But what about the other, more reasonable possibility, that a homosexuality related gene (if indeed exists) may confer some (health) benefit on its bearers in the feminine line, and thus statistically avoid extinction (like the sickle-cell advantage to malaria) ? It doesn't have to do with kin selection.
And finally, "The most famous theory of evolution before Darwin was... Lamarck... Darwin completely rejected this world-view and replaced it with one in which organisms and environment were completely separated"(p.108) However, it is now known that Darwin himself subscribed to some Lamarckian processes.

This was a great read about the utter (and often unfounded) confidence that modern society places on the institutions of "biology" and "science." Since it's patched together from a lecture series and a book review, the text can be a little repetitive and disjointed from chapter to chapter. Still, I think this is a wonderful starting point for more in-depth study about science and human society, and is suited for quite a broad audience.