Abstract
The roots of biological determinism are ancient. Yet despite advances in biological science in the twentieth century, determinist thinking has not been eliminated. This article reviews the history of biological determinism, examining its varieties from its creationist beginnings to present-day biological thinking in the age of genomics. It elucidates the relationship between biological determinism and racialist understandings of human genetic variation. Of particular importance in this regard are the ongoing claims of racial medicine (a modern biological determinist variety) as well as resurgent attempts to classify humans into biological races utilizing genomic data and clustering algorithms (such as STRUCTURE). Finally it presents how the complexity of biological variation generated by genetic, epigenetic, environmental, and chance effects vitiates simplistic biological determinism.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 24-50 |
| Number of pages | 27 |
| Journal | Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science |
| Volume | 661 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 13 2015 |
UN SDGs
This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
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SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
Keywords
- biological determinism
- epigenetics
- race
- racial medicine
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