Editing Biological determinism

{{Short description|Research paradigm in behavioural genetics}}
{{good article}}
{{redirect|Geneticism|the profession|Geneticist}}
{{redirect|Biologism|the profession|Biologist}}
{{use British English|date=June 2024}}
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'''Biological determinism''', also known as '''genetic determinism''',<ref>{{cite journal |last1=de Melo-Martín |first1=Inmaculada |title=When Is Biology Destiny? Biological Determinism and Social Responsibility |journal=[[Philosophy of Science (journal)|Philosophy of Science]] |date=2003 |volume=70 |issue=5 |pages=1184–1194 |jstor=10.1086/377399 |quote=I will use here 'biology' and 'genetics' ... interchangeably ... because this is the way they are used in most of the literature I analyze here ... Critics accuse those who use biology to explain every possible human trait of presupposing the truth of biological or genetic determinism. |doi=10.1086/377399|s2cid=224834276 |url=http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/1062/ }}</ref> is the belief that human behaviour is directly controlled by an individual's [[Genetics|genes]] or some component of their [[physiology]], generally at the expense of the role of the environment, whether in embryonic development or in learning.<ref name="OxRef 2021">{{cite web |title=Biological determinism |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095507933 |website=Oxford Reference |access-date=26 September 2021 |date=2021 |quote=The idea that an individual's personality or behaviour is caused by their particular genetic endowment, rather than by social or cultural factors—by nature rather than nurture.}}</ref> [[Genetic reductionism]] is a similar concept, but it is distinct from genetic determinism in that the former refers to the level of understanding, while the latter refers to the supposed causal role of genes.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ImdQDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA138 |title=A Student's Dictionary of Psychology and Neuroscience |last1=Hayes |first1=Nicky |last2=Stratton |first2=Peter |year=2017 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1351803199 |page=138}}</ref> Biological determinism has been associated with movements in science and society including [[eugenics]], [[scientific racism]], and the debates around the [[heritability of IQ]],<ref name=AllenReview/> the basis of [[Biology and sexual orientation|sexual orientation]],<ref name=LewontinRoseKamin1984>{{cite book |last1=Lewontin |first1=Richard |author1-link=Richard Lewontin |last2=Rose |first2=Steven |last3=Kamin |first3=Leon |title=Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature |title-link=Not in Our Genes |publisher=[[Pantheon Books]] |year=1984 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/notinourgenes00rich/page/131 131–163]}}</ref> and evolutionary foundations of cooperation in [[sociobiology]].<ref name="May 1976"/>

In 1892, the German evolutionary biologist [[August Weismann]] proposed in his [[germ plasm]] theory that heritable information is transmitted only via [[germ cell]]s, which he thought contained determinants (genes). The English polymath [[Francis Galton]], supposing that undesirable traits such as [[club foot]] and [[criminality]] were inherited, advocated eugenics, aiming to prevent supposedly defective people from breeding. The American physician [[Samuel George Morton]] and the French physician [[Paul Broca]] attempted to relate the cranial capacity (internal skull volume) to skin colour, intending to show that [[white people]] were superior. Other workers such as the American psychologists [[H. H. Goddard]] and [[Robert Yerkes]] attempted to [[Intelligence Quotient|measure people's intelligence]] and to show that the resulting scores were heritable, again to demonstrate the supposed superiority of people with white skin.<ref name=AllenReview/>

Galton popularized the phrase [[nature and nurture]], later often used to characterize the heated debate over whether genes or the environment determined human behaviour. Scientists such as behavioural geneticists now see it as obvious that both factors are essential, and that they are intertwined, especially through the mechanisms of [[epigenetics]].<ref name="Powledge 2011">{{cite journal |last=Powledge |first=Tabitha M. |title=Behavioral Epigenetics: How Nurture Shapes Nature |journal=[[BioScience]] |volume=61 |issue=8 |pages=588–592 |date=2011 |doi=10.1525/bio.2011.61.8.4 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Moore 2003">{{cite book |last=Moore |first=David S. |year=2003 |title=The Dependent Gene: The Fallacy of Nature Vs. Nurture |publisher=Henry Holt |isbn=978-0-8050-7280-8 |pages=207–215 When Cows Fly: The Full-Blown Demise of Genetic Determinism}}</ref> The American biologist [[E. O. Wilson]], who founded the discipline of sociobiology based on observations of animals such as [[social insects]], controversially suggested that its explanations of social behaviour might apply to humans.<ref name="May 1976"/>

== History ==

[[File:Weismann's Germ Plasm.svg|thumb|upright=1.5|[[August Weismann]]'s 1892 [[germ plasm]] theory. The hereditary material, the germ plasm, is confined to the [[gonad]]s. [[Somatic cells]] (of the body) [[embryology|develop afresh]] in each generation from the germ plasm.]]

=== Germ plasm ===

{{main|Germ plasm}}

In 1892, the Austrian biologist [[August Weismann]] proposed that multicellular organisms consist of two separate types of cell: [[somatic cell]]s, which carry out the body's ordinary functions, and [[germ cell]]s, which transmit heritable information. He called the material that carried the information, now identified as [[DNA]], the [[germ plasm]], and individual components of it, now called [[gene]]s, determinants which controlled the organism.<ref>{{cite book |author=Weismann, August |author-link=August Weismann |year=1892 |title=Das Keimplasma: eine Theorie der Vererbung |trans-title=The Germ Plasm: A Theory of Inheritance |language=de |publisher=[[S. Fischer Verlag]] |location=Jena |url=http://www.esp.org/books/weismann/germ-plasm/facsimile/}}</ref> Weismann argued that there is a one-way transfer of information from the germ cells to somatic cells, so that nothing acquired by the body during an organism's life can affect the germ plasm and the next generation. This effectively denied that [[Lamarckism|Lamarckism (inheritance of acquired characteristics)]] was a possible mechanism of evolution.<ref>{{cite book |author=Huxley, Julian |author-link=Julian Huxley |year=1942 |title=Evolution, the modern synthesis |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.280031 |publisher=Allen and Unwin |page=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.280031/page/n16 17]}}</ref> The modern equivalent of the theory, expressed at molecular rather than cellular level, is the [[central dogma of molecular biology]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Turner |first=J. Scott |editor1=Henning, Brian G. |editor2=Scarfe, Adam Christian |chapter=Biology's Second Law: Homeostasis, Purpose, and Desire |title=Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=naQm1_Lutq4C&pg=PA192 |year=2013 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |isbn=978-0-7391-7436-4 |page=192 |quote=Where Weismann would say that it is impossible for changes acquired during an organism's lifetime to feed back onto transmissible traits in the germ line, the CDMB now added that it was impossible for information encoded in proteins to feed back and affect genetic information in any form whatsoever, which was essentially a molecular recasting of the Weismann barrier.}}</ref>

===Eugenics===

{{main|Eugenics}}

[[File:Francis Galton 1850s.jpg|thumb|upright|The early eugenicist [[Francis Galton]] invented the term [[eugenics]] and popularized the phrase [[nature and nurture]].<ref>{{cite journal |author=Galton, Francis |author-link=Francis Galton |date=1874 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_uE-bpGo2N4C&pg=PA227 |title=On men of science, their nature and their nurture |journal=[[Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain]] |volume=7 |pages=227–236}}</ref>]]

Early ideas of biological determinism centred on the inheritance of undesirable traits, whether physical such as [[club foot]] or [[cleft palate]], or psychological such as [[alcoholism]], [[bipolar disorder]] and [[criminality]]. The belief that such traits were inherited led to an attempt to solve the problem with the [[eugenics]] movement. This was led by a follower of [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]], [[Francis Galton]] (1822–1911), who advocated forcibly reducing breeding among people with those traits. By the 1920s, many U.S. states enacted laws permitting the compulsory [[sterilization (medicine)|sterilization]] of people considered genetically unfit, including inmates of [[prison]]s and [[psychiatric hospital]]s. This was followed by similar laws in Germany, and throughout the Western world, in the 1930s.<ref name=EB>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Allen |first=Garland Edward |title=Biological determinism |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/biological-determinism |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |date=9 December 2015}}</ref><ref name=AllenReview>{{cite journal |last=Allen |first=Garland E. |title=The Roots of Biological Determinism: review of The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould |journal=[[Journal of the History of Biology]] |date=1984 |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=141–145 |jstor=4330882 |doi=10.1007/bf00397505|pmid=11611452 |s2cid=29672121 }}</ref><ref name=Mismeasure>{{cite book |last=Gould |first=Stephen Jay |author-link=Stephen Jay Gould |title=The Mismeasure of Man |url=https://archive.org/details/mismeasureofman00goulrich |url-access=registration |date=1981 |publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company|W. W. Norton]] |pages=188–203 "H. H. Goddard and the menace of the feeble-minded" }}</ref>

=== Scientific racism ===

{{main|Scientific racism}}
{{further|Race and genetics}}

Under the influence of determinist beliefs, the American [[craniologist]] [[Samuel George Morton]] (1799–1851), and later the French anthropologist [[Paul Broca]] (1824–1880), attempted to measure the cranial capacities (internal skull volumes) of people of different skin colours, intending to show that whites were superior to the rest, with larger brains. All the supposed proofs from such studies were invalidated by methodological flaws. The results were used to justify [[slavery]], and to oppose [[women's suffrage]].<ref name=AllenReview/>

=== Heritability of IQ ===

{{main|Heritability of IQ}}

[[Alfred Binet]] (1857–1911)  designed tests specifically to measure performance, not innate ability. From the late 19th century, the American school, led by researchers such as [[H. H. Goddard]] (1866–1957), [[Lewis Terman]] (1877–1956), and [[Robert Yerkes]] (1876–1956), transformed these tests into tools for measuring inherited mental ability. They attempted to measure people's intelligence with [[Intelligence Quotient|IQ tests]], to demonstrate that the resulting scores were [[heritable]], and so to conclude that [[Scientific racism|people with white skin were superior]] to the rest. It proved impossible to design culture-independent tests and to carry out testing in a fair way given that people came from different backgrounds, or were newly arrived immigrants, or were illiterate. The results were used to oppose [[immigration]] of people from southern and eastern Europe to the USA.<ref name=AllenReview/>

=== Human sexual orientation ===

{{further|Sexual orientation}}

Human sexual orientation, which ranges over [[heterosexual-homosexual continuum|a continuum]] from exclusive attraction to the opposite sex to exclusive attraction to the same sex,<ref name="pediatrics2004">{{cite journal |doi=10.1542/peds.113.6.1827 |last=Frankowski |first=B. L. |author2=American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Adolescence |title=Sexual orientation and adolescents |journal=[[Pediatrics (journal)|Pediatrics]] |volume=113 |issue=6 |pages=1827–1832 |date=June 2004 |pmid=15173519 |url=http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/113/6/1827.long|doi-access=free |url-access=subscription }}</ref> is caused by the interplay of genetic and [[Environment and sexual orientation|environmental influences]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Stuart, Gail Wiscarz |title=Principles and Practice of Psychiatric Nursing |publisher=Elsevier |isbn=978-0-323-29412-6 |year=2014 |page=502 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ivALBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA502}}</ref> There is considerably more evidence for [[Biology and sexual orientation|biological causes of sexual orientation]] than social factors, especially for males.<ref name="pediatrics2004"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bailey |first1=J. M. |last2=Vasey |first2=P. L. |last3=Diamond |first3=L. M. |author4=Breedlove, S. M. |author5=Vilain, E. |author6=Epprecht, M. |display-authors=3 |title=Sexual Orientation, Controversy, and Science |journal=[[Psychological Science in the Public Interest]] |volume=17 |issue=21 |date=2016 |doi=10.1177/1529100616637616 |pmid=27113562 |pages=45–101 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

=== Sociobiology ===

{{main|Sociobiology|Evolution of altruism}}

[[File:Plos wilson.jpg|thumb|[[E. O. Wilson]] reignited debate on biological determinism with his 1975 book ''[[Sociobiology: The New Synthesis]]''.]]

[[Sociobiology]] emerged with [[E. O. Wilson]]'s 1975 book ''[[Sociobiology: The New Synthesis]]''.<ref name="May 1976">{{cite journal |title=Sociobiology: a new synthesis and an old quarrel |author=May, Robert M. |date=1 April 1976 |volume=260 |issue=5550 |pages=390–392 |pmid=11643303 |doi=10.1038/260390a0 |journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]] |bibcode=1976Natur.260..390M |s2cid=4144395 |doi-access=free }}</ref> The existence of a putative [[altruism]] gene has been debated; the evolutionary biologist [[W. D. Hamilton]] proposed "genes underlying altruism" in 1964,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hamilton |first=W. D. |author-link=W. D. Hamilton |title=The genetical evolution of social behaviour. I |journal=[[Journal of Theoretical Biology]] |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=1–16 |year=1964 |pmid=5875341 |doi=10.1016/0022-5193(64)90038-4|bibcode=1964JThBi...7....1H }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hamilton |first=W. D. |author-link=W. D. Hamilton |title=The genetical evolution of social behaviour. II |journal=[[Journal of Theoretical Biology]] |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=17–52 |year=1964 |pmid=5875340 |doi=10.1016/0022-5193(64)90039-6 |bibcode=1964JThBi...7...17H }}</ref> while the biologist Graham J. Thompson and colleagues identified the genes [[OXTR]], [[CD38]], [[COMT]], [[DRD4]], [[DRD5]], [[IGF2]], [[GABRB2]] as candidates "affecting altruism".<ref>{{cite journal|pmc=3871336 |pmid=24132092 |doi=10.1098/rsbl.2013.0395 |volume=9 |issue=6 |title=Genes underlying altruism |year=2013 |journal=[[Biology Letters]] |page=20130395 |last1=Thompson |first1=G. J. |last2=Hurd |first2=P. L. |last3=Crespi |first3=B. J.}}</ref> The geneticist [[Steve Jones (biologist)|Steve Jones]] argues that altruistic behaviour like "loving our neighbour" is built into the human genome, with the proviso that neighbour means member of "our tribe", someone who shares many genes with the altruist, and that the behaviour can thus be explained by [[kin selection]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Giberson |first=Karl |title=Book review: 'The Serpent's Promise', on Bible-Science tensions, by Steve Jones |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/book-review-the-serpents-promise-on-bible-science-tensions-by-steve-jones/2014/08/15/6db92e54-133f-11e4-98ee-daea85133bc9_story.html |access-date=9 June 2018 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=15 August 2014}}</ref> Evolutionary biologists such as Jones have argued that genes that did not lead to selfish behaviour would die out compared to genes that did, because the selfish genes would favour themselves. However, the mathematician George Constable and colleagues have argued that altruism can be an [[evolutionarily stable strategy]], making organisms better able to survive random catastrophes.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Johnston |first1=Ian |title=Altruism has more of an evolutionary advantage than selfishness, mathematicians say |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/altruism-selfishness-evolution-mathematics-princeton-bath-university-a7148471.html |work=[[The Independent]] |date=21 July 2016}}</ref><ref name="Constable Rogers McKane Tarnita pp. E4745–E4754">{{cite journal |last1=Constable |first1=George W. A. |last2=Rogers |first2=Tim |last3=McKane |first3=Alan J. |last4=Tarnita |first4=Corina E. |title=Demographic noise can reverse the direction of deterministic selection |journal=[[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America|Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences]] |volume=113 |issue=32 |date=22 July 2016 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1603693113 |pmid=27450085 |pmc=4987790 |pages=E4745–E4754 |arxiv=1608.03471 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

== Nature versus nurture debate ==

{{main |Nature and nurture}}

The belief in biological determinism was matched in the 20th century by a [[Tabula rasa|blank slate]] denial of any possible influence of genes on human behaviour, leading to [[Nature and nurture|a long and heated debate about "nature and nurture"]]. By the 21st century, many scientists had come to feel that the dichotomy made no sense. They noted that genes are expressed within an environment, in particular that of [[prenatal development]], and that gene expression is continuously influenced by the environment through mechanisms such as [[epigenetics]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Ridley |first=Matt |author-link=Matt Ridley |title=Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, & What Makes Us Human |date=2003 |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=978-0-002-00663-7 |pages=98–124 The madness of causes, and whole book}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Moore |first=David S. |title=The Developing Genome: An Introduction to behavioural Epigenetics |date=2015 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-199-92234-5 |edition=1st |pages=55–64 Epigenetics, and 156–166 Multiplicity }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/time-to-retire-the-simplicity-of-nature-vs-nurture-1390610295 |title=Time to Retire The Simplicity of Nature vs. Nurture |last=Gutiérrez |first=Luci |date=January 24, 2014 |newspaper=[[The Wall Street Journal]] }}</ref> Epigenetics provides evidence that human behaviours or [[physiology]] can be decided by interactions between genes and environments.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Berger |first1=Shelley L. |last2=Kouzarides |first2=Tony |last3=Shiekhattar |first3=Ramin |last4=Shilatifard |first4=Ali |date=1 April 2009 |title=An operational definition of epigenetics |journal=Genes & Development |volume=23 |issue=7 |pages=781–783 |doi=10.1101/gad.1787609 |pmc=3959995 |pmid=19339683 }}</ref> For example, [[Twin|monozygotic twins]] usually have exactly identical [[genome]]s. Scientists have focused on comparison studies of such twins for evaluating the [[heritability]] of genes and the roles of epigenetics in divergences and similarities between monozygotic twins, and have found that epigenetics plays an important part in human behaviours, including the stress response.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Petronis |first=Arturas |date=1 July 2006 |title=Epigenetics and twins: three variations on the theme |journal=[[Trends in Genetics]] |volume=22 |issue=7 |pages=347–350 |doi=10.1016/j.tig.2006.04.010 |pmid=16697072 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bell |first1=Jordana T. |last2=Spector |first2=Tim D. |author2-link=Tim Spector |date=1 March 2011 |title=A twin approach to unraveling epigenetics |journal=Trends in Genetics |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=116–125 |doi=10.1016/j.tig.2010.12.005 |pmid=21257220 |pmc=3063335 }}</ref>

== See also ==

{{div col}}
* {{annotated link|Behavioral epigenetics}}
* {{annotated link|Behavioural genetics}}
* {{annotated link|Blood quantum laws}}
* {{annotated link|Dual inheritance theory}}
* {{annotated link|Nature–culture divide}}
* {{annotated link|One-drop rule}}
* {{annotated link|Social determinism}}
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Determinism}}
{{Evolutionary psychology}}
{{Racism topics}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Biological Determinism}}
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[[Category:Philosophy of science]]
[[Category:Philosophy of biology]]