NOT IN OUR GENES

With a new preface to the 2017 edition.

NOT IN OUR GENES systematically exposes and dismantles the claims that inequalities—class, race, gender—are the products of biological, genetic inheritances.

In what Stephen Jay Gould calls an “important and timely book,” three eminent scientists provide a bold and biting critique of biological determinism and sociobiology. Refuting the claim that what individuals can and cannot do is fixed, in essence, by their genetic makeup, the authors offer a cogent response to an argument which rages far beyond the scientific world.

Richard Lewontin is an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, academic and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, he pioneered the application of techniques from molecular biology, to questions of genetic variation.

Steven Rose: Is emeritus Professor of Biology and Neurobiology at the Open University and Gresham College, London.

Leon J. Kamin is an American psychologist known for his contributions to learning theory and his critique of estimates of the heritability of IQ. He discovered several important facts about conditioning, including the “Kamin Effect” and the “blocking effect.” Kamin was blacklisted during the McCarthy era and had to find employment in Canada, where he chaired the Psychology Department at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. Later he chaired Princeton University's Department of Psychology, and the Psychology Department at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.