In the six short chapters contained in Biology as Ideology, Richard Lewontin, a renowned geneticist, sets about clarifying the relationship between genes, society and genetics. In particular, he scrutinizes the dominance acquired by genetic determinism as a mechanism of causation.

Biology as Ideology once earned the title ‘most subversive book’ of 1993. How is it that this book, indeed any science book, could earn such a title? The chief reason is that Lewontin recognizes what few scientists do, that the respectability attained by biological, and particularly genetic, determinism is not simply an error of scientific judgment. It is instead an example of the tendency for interactions between scientists and those with power to be mutually accommodating. ...    - rc
   more »

If complexity metaphors can be problematic when applied to social phenomena because they often reduce historic inequalities of socio-economic status to mere patterns of self-organization, metaphors of increasing complexity can be misused when combined with socially constructed ideas of progress. Stephen Jay Gould at least thought as much and this review of The Game of Life outlines some of the problems with equating increasing complexity with directional progress rc ...   more »