Stephen Jay Gould on Biological & Cultural Determinisms

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Thu Nov 25 11:10:38 PST 1999


Stephen Jay Gould writes in "Nurturing Nature," _An Urchin in the Storm: Essays about Books and Ideas_ (NY: Norton, 1987):

***** ..._Not in Our Genes_ [by R.C. Lewontine, Steven Rose, and Leon J. Kamin] is an important and timely book, for it not only exposes the fallacies of biological determinism...but also presents a positive view of human behavior that could propel us past the stupefying sterility of nature-nurture arguments. A proper understanding of biology and culture both affirms the great importance of biology in human behavior and also explains why biology makes us free. The old equation of biology with restriction, with the inherent (as opposed to malleable) side of the false dichotomy between nature and nurture, rests upon errors of thinking as old as Western culture itself. The critics of biological determinism do not uphold the equally fallacious (and equally cruel and restrictive) view that human culture cancels biology. Biological determinism has limited the lives of millions by misidentifying their socioeconomic disadvantages as inborn deficiencies, but cultural determinism can be just as cruel in attributing severe congenital diseases, autism for instance, to psychobabble about too much parental love, or too little. (148) *****

Yoshie



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