Genes, Networks and the Reality of Gender

Trees of Life, 1992

Russell Gray DEATH OF THE GENE: DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEMS STRIKE BACK "Story-telling is a serious concept, but one happily without the power to claim unique or dosed readings."' Evolutionary biologists tell stories. Our epic narratives sweep from diatoms to dinosaurs, from hens' teeth to horses' toes, and from protein polymorphisms to primate societies. Two philosophers of biology' have recently noted that there are usually two types of story: a traditional and an alternative form. The traditional type of story is told in terms of the differential survival and reproduction of individuals, while in the alternative the fundamental unit is the gene. In their paper, 'The Return of the Gene", Kim Sterelny and Phillip Kitcher defend genic selectionism against several objections raised by its critics. Central to these arguments are conflicting views of the roles of genes and environment in development and evolution. In this paper I wish to explore the implications of a recent radical reformulation of the nature/nurture debate for the types of evolutionary narratives we tell. I will begin by detailing some objections that comparative psychologists and biologists have previously raised to the division of the phenotype into innate and acquired components. I will then consider some more recent possible resolutions to the nature/nurture debate and outline the major tenets of a constructionist, developmental systems perspective. In the following sections I will consider ways in which commitments to outmoded dichotomous views of development constrain both sides of the units of selection debate. I will focus on the ways in which the views of G.C. Williams, 165

What are ‘gay genes’ and are they real? This article looks at key research into these hypothesized gay genes, made possible, in part, by the Human Genome Project. I argue that the complexity of both genetics and human sexuality demands a truly critical approach: one that takes into account feminist epistemologies of science and queer approaches to the body, while putting into conversation resources from agential realism and critical realism. This approach is able to maintain the agential complexity of genetic materiality, while also critically challenging the seemingly stable relationships between sex, gender and sexuality.

The article investigates discourse traditions of key-metaphors in popular accounts of genetics, such as those of genes or cells as selfish replicators, or of selection as a self-propelling agent or prime mover of evolution. Such agentive metaphors recall folk theories of heredity in terms of blood relations and blood lineage, which informed racist Nazi ideology in the 20th century but which can be traced back further to the theory of blood as one of the four "humours" in pre-modern thought. It is argued that, like the "blood myth" of heredity, the agentive metaphors of modern popular genetics have their origins in the ancient theory tradition of the "Great Chain of Being", which helped to shape Western philosophy and which has been found by cognitive researchers to be still present today in the form of idioms and public language use. Gegenstand dieses Artikels sind die Diskurstraditionen, auf welchen Schlüsselmetaphern populärwissenschaftlicher Darstellungen zur Genetik und ‚Gentechnologie' beruhen, z.B. Beschreibungen von Genen als egoistisch handelnden Wesen oder der natürlichen Auslese insgesamt als Akteur oder Beweger der Evolution. Diese Metaphern erinnern stark an vorwissenschaftliche Vorstellungen von Vererbung als Blutsverwandtschaft. Die Theorie von Blut als Erbträger spielte eine prominente Funktion in der NS-Ideologie, sie lässt sich aber bis hin zur antiken "Säfte"-Lehre zurückverfolgen. Es wird die Hypothese entwickelt, dass sowohl der "Blut"-Mythos der Vererbung als auch die Handlungs-Metaphern populärerer Genetik-Darstellungen dem Kontext der Theorien einer "Kette des Seins" (Great Chain of Being) zuzuordnen sind. Dieser bis in die Antike zurück gehende Theoriekomplex war nicht nur von enormer Bedeutung in der westlichen Philosophiegeschichte, sondern liegt auch, wie kognitive Forschungen gezeigt haben, in Form von Idiomen und konzeptuellen Metaphern modernem Sprachgebrauch zugrunde.

International Journal of Epidemiology, 2012

During the late 1930s and the early 1940s, a particularly productive period in his scientific life, Conrad Hal Waddington (1905-1975 started to construct a new synthesis between genetics, embryology and evolution. In the four years between 1939 and 1943, before he became involved in military activity during the Second World War, he published two substantial books and several seminal papers, all of which were explicitly geared towards constructing of an integrated view of biology. 'The Epigenotype', 1 published in 1942 in the semi-popular science journal Endeavour, is one of these papers.

History and philosophy of the life sciences, 2017

Between November 30th and December 2nd, 2015, the Jacques Loeb Centre for the History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva (Israel) held its Eighth International Workshop under the title "From Genome to Gene: Causality, Synthesis and Evolution". Eric Davidson, the founder of the concept of developmental Gene Regulatory Networks, had regularly attended the previous meetings, and his participation in this one was expected, but he suddenly passed away 3 months before. In this paper, we provide an introduction and overview on five papers that were presented at the workshop and examine the importance of genomes and gene regulatory networks in extant biology, developmental biology, evolutionary biology and medicine, as well as a collection of remembrances of Eric Davidson, of his personality as well as of his scientific contributions. Historical perspectives are provided, and the ethical issues raised by the new tools developed ...

The article investigates discourse traditions of key-metaphors in popular accounts of genetics, such as those of genes or cells as selfish replicators, or of selection as a self-propelling agent or prime mover of evolution. Such agentive metaphors recall folk theories of heredity in terms of blood relations and blood lineage, which informed racist Nazi ideology in the 20th century but which can be traced back further to the theory of blood as one of the four “humours” in pre-modern thought. It is argued that, like the “blood myth” of heredity, the agentive metaphors of modern popular genetics have their origins in the ancient theory tradition of the “Great Chain of Being”, which helped to shape Western philosophy and which has been found by cognitive researchers to be still present today in the form of idioms and public language use.

Philosophical Psychology, 2008

During the late 1930s and the early 1940s, a particularly productive period in his scientific life, Conrad Hal Waddington (1905-75) started to construct a new synthesis between genetics, embryology and evolution. In the 4 years between 1939 and 1943, before he became involved in military activity during the Second World War, he published two substantial books and several seminal papers, all of which were explicitly geared towards constructing of an integrated view of biology. 'The Epigenotype', 1 published in 1942 in the semi-popular science journal Endeavour, is one of these papers. In it, Waddington presented and developed some of the ideas that he had already discussed in his books, and also defined, albeit informally, a new domain of research, epigenetics-the study of the causal mechanisms intervening between the genotype and the phenotype.

Evolutionary Biology: Biodiversification from Genotype to Phenotype, 2015

Living cells and organisms are complex physical systems. Does their organization or complexity primarily rely on the intra-molecular crystalline structure of genetic nucleic acid sequences? Or is it, as critics of the ‘gene-centred’ perspective claim, predominantly a result of the inter- and supra-molecular—thus ‘holistic’—network dynamics of genetic and various extra-genetic factors? The twentieth-century successes in several branches of genetics caused intensive focus on the causal role of genes in the biochemistry, development and evolution of living organisms, resulting in a relative abstraction or even neglect of life’s complex systems dynamics. Today, however, partly due to the success of systems biology, a number of authors defend life’s systems complexity while criticizing the gene-centred approach. Here, we offer a way out of the impasse of the gene-centred ‘versus’ complex systems perspective to arrive at a more balanced and complete understanding of life’s multifaceted nature. After sketching the conceptual and historical background of the controversy, we show how the present state of knowledge in biology vindicates both the holistically complex and gene-centred nature of life on Earth, but decisively falsifies extreme genetic ‘determinism’ and ‘reductionism’ as well as extreme ‘gene-de-centrism’. Contrary to what is often claimed, the fact that genes are one among many extra-genetic causal factors contributing to the biochemistry and development of cells and organisms, only undermines or falsifies genetic determinism and reductionism but not necessarily gene-centrism. Some implications for evolutionary theory, i.e. for the controversy between the Modern Synthesis and an ‘Extended Synthesis’, are outlined.

Routledge eBooks, 2000