Richard C Lewontin
Biographic Data
| ID | 218276 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Richard C Lewontin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Richard C |
| FAMILY NAME | Lewontin |
| SIGNATURE | LEWONTIN R C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 48 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 220 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 48 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1963 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Genotype and Phenotype
The mystery of language evolution
Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved. We show that…
Clines Without Classes: How to Make Sense of Human Variation
This article examines Shiao, Bode, Beyer, and Selvig's (2012) arguments in their article 'The Genomic Challenge to the Social Construction of Race' and finds that their claims are based on fundamentally flawed interpretations of current genetic research. We discuss current genomic and genetic knowledge about human biological variation to demonstrate why and how Shiao et al.'s recommendations for future sociological studies and social policy, base…
The Generational Cycle of State Spaces and Adequate Genetical Representation
Most models of generational succession in sexually reproducing populations necessarily move back and forth between genic and genotypic spaces. We show that transitions between and within these spaces are usually hidden by unstated assumptions about processes in these spaces. We also examine a widely endorsed claim regarding the mathematical equivalence of kin-, group-, individual-, and allelic-selection models made by Lee Dugatkin and Kern Reeve.…
The Price of Metaphor
In his critical response to our skeptical inquiry, “Does Culture Evolve?” (History and Theory, Theme Issue 38 [December 1999], 52–78), W. G. Runciman affirms that “Culture Does Evolve.” However, we find nothing in his essay that convinces us to alter our initial position. And we must confess that in composing an answer to Runciman, our first temptation was simply to urge those interested to read our original article–both as a basis for evaluating…
The Confusions of Fitness
The central point of this essay is to demonstrate the incommensurability of ‘Darwinian fitness’ with the numeric values associated with reproductive rates used in population genetics. While sometimes both are called ‘fitness’, they are distinct concepts coming from distinct explanatory schemes. Further, we try to outline a possible answer to the following question: from the natural properties of organisms and a knowledge of their environment, can…
Stephen Jay Gould—What Does It Mean To Be a Radical
The politics of averages
Schmalhausen's law
Let the numbers speak
Although it is often claimed that statistical techniques are ways of letting the objective data speak for themselves, in both the contrast and correlational modes of statistical inference, all the real work is done by the a priori decisions imported into the analysis—which categories are to be used to create contrasting populations, which categories are to be measured, which categories are to be held constant while others are compared, and which …
Are we programmed
Does Culture Evolve
The drive to describe cultural history as an evolutionary process has two sources. One from within social theory is part of the impetus to convert social studies into "social sciences" providing them with the status accorded to the natural sciences. The other comes from within biology and biological anthropology in the belief that the theory of evolution must be universal in its application to all functions of all living organisms. The social--sc…
Evolutionary psychology
Introduction a l'analyse genetique
The Maturing of Capitalist Agriculture: Farmer as Proletarian
We are all familiar with the classical story of how capitalism came to dominate industrial production and how capitalist relations of production swallowed up the individual artisanal producer. We recognize the power that the capitalist model to infiltrate and finally transform other forms of the organization of production and exchange. We sometimes think that the power of that transformation is so great that all of the significant action already …
How different are natural and social science
1998). How different are natural and social science? Capitalism Nature Socialism: Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 85-89
Does anything new ever happen
Life on other worlds
The biological and the social
1997). The biological and the social. Capitalism Nature Socialism: Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 89-92
Chance and necessity
Organism and environment
The end of natural history
The return of old diseases and the appearance of new ones
In defense of science
A la Recherche du Temps Perdu
Configurations - Volume 3, Number 2, Spring 1995
Organism and environment
The mystery of language evolution
Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved. We show that…
Artifact, Cause and Genic Selection
Several evolutionary biologists have used a parsimony argument to argue that the single gene is the unit of selection. Since all evolution by natural selection can be represented in terms of selection coefficients attaching to single genes, it is, they say, “more parsimonious” to think that all selection is selection for or against single genes. We examine the limitations of this genic point of view, and then relate our criticisms to a broader vi…
Clines Without Classes: How to Make Sense of Human Variation
This article examines Shiao, Bode, Beyer, and Selvig's (2012) arguments in their article 'The Genomic Challenge to the Social Construction of Race' and finds that their claims are based on fundamentally flawed interpretations of current genetic research. We discuss current genomic and genetic knowledge about human biological variation to demonstrate why and how Shiao et al.'s recommendations for future sociological studies and social policy, base…
The Confusions of Fitness
The central point of this essay is to demonstrate the incommensurability of ‘Darwinian fitness’ with the numeric values associated with reproductive rates used in population genetics. While sometimes both are called ‘fitness’, they are distinct concepts coming from distinct explanatory schemes. Further, we try to outline a possible answer to the following question: from the natural properties of organisms and a knowledge of their environment, can…
Does Culture Evolve
The drive to describe cultural history as an evolutionary process has two sources. One from within social theory is part of the impetus to convert social studies into "social sciences" providing them with the status accorded to the natural sciences. The other comes from within biology and biological anthropology in the belief that the theory of evolution must be universal in its application to all functions of all living organisms. The social--sc…
The Political Economy of Hybrid Corn
The previous article provided an overview of how science and technology have been used to subordinate the largely precapitalist system of agricultural production to the domination of capital. In this article we provide a case study of the penetration of capital in corn cultivation with the spread of the use of hybrid corn, the flagship of the successful innovations of twentieth-century agricultural research. Geneticists, historians, sociologists,…
Facts and the Factitious in Natural Sciences
The Price of Metaphor
In his critical response to our skeptical inquiry, “Does Culture Evolve?” (History and Theory, Theme Issue 38 [December 1999], 52–78), W. G. Runciman affirms that “Culture Does Evolve.” However, we find nothing in his essay that convinces us to alter our initial position. And we must confess that in composing an answer to Runciman, our first temptation was simply to urge those interested to read our original article–both as a basis for evaluating…
The Maturing of Capitalist Agriculture: Farmer as Proletarian
We are all familiar with the classical story of how capitalism came to dominate industrial production and how capitalist relations of production swallowed up the individual artisanal producer. We recognize the power that the capitalist model to infiltrate and finally transform other forms of the organization of production and exchange. We sometimes think that the power of that transformation is so great that all of the significant action already …
The biological and the social
1997). The biological and the social. Capitalism Nature Socialism: Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 89-92
Dialectics and reductionism in ecology
Introduction a l'analyse genetique
Holism and reductionism in ecology
1994). Holism and reductionism in ecology. Capitalism Nature Socialism: Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 33-40
Evolutionary psychology
Technology, Research, and the Penetration of Capital: The Case of U.S. Agriculture
International audience
The Generational Cycle of State Spaces and Adequate Genetical Representation
Most models of generational succession in sexually reproducing populations necessarily move back and forth between genic and genotypic spaces. We show that transitions between and within these spaces are usually hidden by unstated assumptions about processes in these spaces. We also examine a widely endorsed claim regarding the mathematical equivalence of kin-, group-, individual-, and allelic-selection models made by Lee Dugatkin and Kern Reeve.…
Schmalhausen's law
The end of natural history
The Dimensions of Selection
Proponents of genic selectionism have claimed that evolutionary processes normally viewed as selection on individuals can be “represented” as selection on alleles. This paper discusses the relationship between mathematical questions about the formal requirements upon state spaces necessary for the representation of different types of evolutionary processes and causal questions about the units of selection in such processes
Reply to Rosenberg on Genic Selectionism
Rosenberg (1983), in his comments on our article (Sober and Lewontin 1982) concerning the units of selection controversy, has matters precisely backwards. He chides us for conflating a causal theory with a mathematical model, whereas this is precisely the error we argued is at the core of the position defended by Williams (1966) and Dawkins (1976). Their idea—genic selectionism—confuses the computational adequacy of a mathematical model with a su…
Stephen Jay Gould—What Does It Mean To Be a Radical
Let the numbers speak
Although it is often claimed that statistical techniques are ways of letting the objective data speak for themselves, in both the contrast and correlational modes of statistical inference, all the real work is done by the a priori decisions imported into the analysis—which categories are to be used to create contrasting populations, which categories are to be measured, which categories are to be held constant while others are compared, and which …
How different are natural and social science
1998). How different are natural and social science? Capitalism Nature Socialism: Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 85-89
Chance and necessity
Models, mathematics and metaphors
Intrahepatic Portal Vein Occlusion: A Cause of Portal Hypertension
The Units of Selection
The literature on effects of habitat fragmentation on biodiversity is huge. It is also very diverse, with different authors measuring fragmentation in different ways and, as a consequence, drawing different conclusions regarding both the ...Read More
The Apportionment of Human Diversity
Can Some Knowledge Simply Cost Too Much
Adaptation
The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: A critique of the adaptationist programme
An adaptationist programme has dominated evolutionary thought in England and the United States during the past 40 years. It is based on faith in the power of natural selection as an optimizing agent. It proceeds by breaking an organism into unitary ‘traits’ and proposing an adaptive story for each considered separately. Trade-offs among competing selective demands exert the only brake upon perfection; non-optimality is thereby rendered as a resul…
Marxists and the University
Dialectics and reductionism in ecology
L’héritabilité au rancart
Artifact, Cause and Genic Selection
Several evolutionary biologists have used a parsimony argument to argue that the single gene is the unit of selection. Since all evolution by natural selection can be represented in terms of selection coefficients attaching to single genes, it is, they say, “more parsimonious” to think that all selection is selection for or against single genes. We examine the limitations of this genic point of view, and then relate our criticisms to a broader vi…
Reply to Rosenberg on Genic Selectionism
Rosenberg (1983), in his comments on our article (Sober and Lewontin 1982) concerning the units of selection controversy, has matters precisely backwards. He chides us for conflating a causal theory with a mathematical model, whereas this is precisely the error we argued is at the core of the position defended by Williams (1966) and Dawkins (1976). Their idea—genic selectionism—confuses the computational adequacy of a mathematical model with a su…
Is the New Biology a Tool of Social Repression
Book reviewed in this article: Not In Our Genes: Biology, Ideology, and Human Nature. By R. C. Lewontin, Steven Rose, and Leon J. Kamin
The Dialectical Biologist
The Political Economy of Hybrid Corn
The previous article provided an overview of how science and technology have been used to subordinate the largely precapitalist system of agricultural production to the domination of capital. In this article we provide a case study of the penetration of capital in corn cultivation with the spread of the use of hybrid corn, the flagship of the successful innovations of twentieth-century agricultural research. Geneticists, historians, sociologists,…
Technology, Research, and the Penetration of Capital: The Case of U.S. Agriculture
International audience
In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity . Daniel J. Kevles
Education and Class: The Irrelevance of IQ Genetic Studies
PART I: GENETICS, IQ, AND SOCIAL CLASS Historical origins IQ scores, school achievement, and social class of origin PART II: HOW MUCH COULD WE BOOST...?: How much could we boost scholastic achievement and IQ scores? How much could we boost access to universities? PART III: RELEVANT AND IRRELEVANT TECHNICAL ISSUES Twelve errors about genetics and their social consequences Genetic studies of IQ scores: asking irrelevant questions Summary and conclu…
Nous ne sommes pas programmés: Génétique, Hérédité, Idéologie
Animals have a complex nature
Facts and the Factitious in Natural Sciences
The Dimensions of Selection
Proponents of genic selectionism have claimed that evolutionary processes normally viewed as selection on individuals can be “represented” as selection on alleles. This paper discusses the relationship between mathematical questions about the formal requirements upon state spaces necessary for the representation of different types of evolutionary processes and causal questions about the units of selection in such processes
Holism and reductionism in ecology
1994). Holism and reductionism in ecology. Capitalism Nature Socialism: Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 33-40
A la Recherche du Temps Perdu
Configurations - Volume 3, Number 2, Spring 1995
The end of natural history
Philosophy (21 works) · Political science (21 works) · Biology (17 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Epistemology (16 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Law (10 works) · Economics (8 works) · History (8 works) · Artificial Intelligence (7 works)