Ellison, GTH orcid.org/0000-0001-8914-6812 and De Wet, T (2018) Biological determinism. In: Trevathan, W, (ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Biological Anthropology. Wiley ISBN 9781118584422
Abstract
Biological determinism is the tendency to view human social phenomena (at the individual, group, and societal level) as the products of biological causes. It can be traced back to the earliest philosophical ideas regarding the biological basis of human nature, and it has played an important role in the interpretation of scientific advances in human anatomy, physiology, and genetics. By privileging biological over environmental causes, biological determinism plays a key role in the “nature versus nurture” debate—suggesting that social phenomena are essential, natural, and immutable and therefore only subject to limited modification by the contexts from which these have emerged and in which these are expressed. These features have placed biological determinism at the center of scientific and popular claims regarding the biological nature of social divisions, including gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and disability (among others). The limits these claims place on individual (and group) agency have been criticized on both scientific and philosophical grounds—first, because many such claims mistake phenotypic and genotypic traits as predominantly prescriptive and insensitive to environmental modification; and second, because they involve logical fallacies and cognitive errors that are prone to social and political bias, and serve to “naturalize” pernicious social effects.
Metadata
Item Type: | Book Section |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Keywords: | biological determinism; biologism; biodeterminism; biological essentialism; genetic determinism; nature versus nurture; naturalistic fallacy; naturalizing error; cognitive bias; eugenics; racial hygiene; gender; sexuality; ethnicity; race; disability |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Medicine (Leeds) > Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine (LICAMM) > Clinical & Population Science Dept (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 04 Aug 2017 11:17 |
Last Modified: | 03 Jun 2019 13:01 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/9781118584538.ieba0056 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:119799 |