Richard C. Lewontin (1929–2021)

This book was my inauguration to the CBC Massey Lectures. Lewontin's assessment of correlation vs causation, biological vs social and religious determinism, and the impact that essentialism and reductionism have had on the state of biology and its reception by the public is incredibly insightful. This is one of the best CBC Massey Lectures I have read on the same level as Atwood's Payback and Wright's A Short History of Progress. Well worth reading despite some dated commentary on the Human Genome Project.

I like this rating system by ashleytylerjohn of LibraryThing (https://www.librarything.com/profile/ashleytylerjohn) that I have also adopted:
(Note: 5 stars = rare and amazing, 4 = quite good book, 3 = a decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful.)… (mer)

I needed these authors at that stage of my intellectual life when I was caught in the toils of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology – dismal years of spiritual depression or oppression. But I didn’t have Goodreads then, to locate alternate ideas, and I’m not of scientific background, to find my way around. So I bought this secondhand a decade or two too late.

I find it unreadable now. It’s far too politicised, from the calm waters I am since in. Biology is, of course, ideology (their slogan and title of another book). One way to see that – which made an impression on me – is to follow how evolutionary science went quite differently in a different culture: case study: Darwin Without Malthus: The Struggle for Existence in Russian Evolutionary Thought. But it’s work on animals that gave me my alternative: Frans de Waal and others. In retrospect, for my spiritual salvation (I don't mean religious, which I've never been), I only needed to go back to Dostoyevsky, who was in a fight against an old determinism, whereas I had met a new.… (mer)

The New York Review of Books has a tradition of publishing reviews and exchanges by professional scientists, including such luminaries as Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Lewontin. It Ain’t Necessarily So is a collection of essays published by Lewontin in the NYR over a period of 20 years. As a scientist on the faculty of Harvard University, Lewontin has long held strong, well-informed opinions about the use and misuse of science in the public domain and political sphere. These essays show him at his best –- erudite, articulate, politically aware, and iconoclastic -- and intolerant of sloppy thinking, substandard research, and hasty generalizations by fellow scientists.

Lewontin is deeply skeptical of ways in which his own field of genetics has been used to justify public policy and conservative political ideology. Indeed, his skepticism represents a common theme of these essays. Topics include the misuse (and dubious nature) of “IQ” (in his review of SJ Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man); the Human Genome Project; the inappropriate use of DNA in forensics; confusion over cloning; the use of genetically modified plants as food; misunderstandings over the nature of heredity; the misuse of biology to justify sexual discrimination; and what he sees as sloppy techniques in investigations of sexuality by social scientists.

Most of the essays reflect the particular time period in which they were written (1981 to 2001). However, they have aged well, and some have been updated with epilogues. All are worth reading for their insight and intelligence, and most remain relevant to current issues. For example, while the Human Genome Project has gone forward and been completed, Lewontin’s early skepticism as to what it would reveal seems prescient, as does his concerns about the patenting of gene sequences by biotechnologists. Likewise, while use of DNA as a forensic tool has now become routine, Lewontin’s cautionary warnings about its misuse remain valid. Other issues dealt with in these essays (misapplication of genetics to issues of gender and race; persistence of the use of measures of "intelligence") remain as relevant as when these essays were first written. One significant attribute of these essays is that they commonly include responses by authors of the books under review, as well as other commentators, followed by Lewontin’s responses. Thus, the reader benefits from witnessing the clash of great intellects over issues of great import.… (mer)