Panofsky, Aaron Leon (Author)
New York University
Duster, Troy
Calhoun, Craig
Edition Details: Advisor: Duster, Troy; Craig Calhoun
Physical Details: 459 pp.
Language: English
The field of behavior genetics produces claims about the genetic causes of intelligence, personality, aggression, mental disorders, and substance abuse, among many other traits and behaviors. Throughout its 45 year history, behavior genetics has been uncommonly controversial among scientific and lay publics: the best known controversies concern claims about the genetics of racial differences in IQ, but others have involved the field's epistemological status, its political and social implications, the motives of its members and critics, and its engagement with the media and other scientific fields. Behavior genetics' controversies often go beyond disagreement between scientists to take on a provocative, sometimes scandalous, air that members and observers alike see as norm-violating. This dissertation explores the character of controversy in behavior genetics, its causes, and its effects on the field's development by drawing from thirty-five in-depth interviews, historical and scientific materials, publication and funding data, and participant observation. The introduction lays out an approach to studying controversy in behavior genetics. Chapter two describes the field's different experimental and interpretive approaches to show why some scientists and observers find behavior genetics compelling and others find it troubling. Chapter three traces the field's history to show how repeated episodes of controversy affected its agenda, membership, relationships, and internal balance of power. Chapter 4 looks at behavior genetics as an "archipelagic field" divided into four different sub-groups with multiple, competing definitions of and attachments to the field. The field is well integrated scientifically but divided institutionally and culturally. Chapter five discusses the field's variable exchanges of "scientific capital" with neighboring scientific fields to explain professional motivations and the field's distribution of power. Chapter six looks at preliminary data about the personal backgrounds and institutional locations of behavior geneticists to make a provisional argument about the contentious and publicity-driven cultural character of the field. Chapter 7 explains how the field's culture and organization has tended to encourage controversy while making it difficult for behavior geneticists to manage. The concluding chapter discusses the study's implications for behavior genetics and sociological theorizing about science.
...MoreDescription On both scientific and lay controversy in the 45-year history of this field. Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 67/09 (2007). UMI pub. no. 3234171.
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