Richard C. Lewontin

genetic environmental nature culture fixed changeble

“The contrast between genetic and environmental, between nature and nurture, is not a contrast between fixed and changeable. It is a fallacy of biological determinism to say that if differences are in the genes, no change can occur.”

― Richard C. Lewontin (1929-2021)

materialism absolute divine foot door

Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

― Richard C. Lewontin (1929-2021)

wrong question asked right difficult answer

“When the wrong question is being asked, it usually turns out to be because the right question is too difficult. Scientists ask questions they can answer. That is, it is often the case that the operations of a science are not a consequence of the problematic of that science, but that the problematic is induced by the available means.”

― Richard C. Lewontin (1929-2021)

side cience absurdity construct materialism divine foot door

"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism... We cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

― Richard C. Lewontin (1929-2021)

experimental science generalities individual butterfly collectin

"An experimental science is supposed to perform experiments that find generalities. It's not just supposed to tally up a long list of individual cases and their unique life histories. That's butterfly collecting."

― Richard C. Lewontin (1929-2021)

political responsible scientific sensible stop world human live

"If we're going to make a politically responsible and a scientifically sensible claim it should not be stop the world exactly where it is because that's not possible. It has to be to decide what kind of world do we as human beings want to live in."

― Richard C. Lewontin (1929-2021)

planetary health geological scale misguided

"I think people who worry about planetary health on geological scales are totally misguided, that's not the point at all."

― Richard C. Lewontin

global warming environment change industrial culture

"If I put myself on the side of those who see the world as warming up in a bad way, who see the general march of industrial culture as something undesirable, the one thing I must be beware of doing and which my colleagues on that side don't beware of doing, we must beware of saying we've got to stop changing the environment. There is no 'the' environment which we can change, the world is changing all the time."

― Richard C. Lewontin (1929-2021)

social science difficult impossible position

"The social scientist is in a difficult, if not impossible position. On the one hand there is the temptation to see all of society as one's autobiography writ large, surely not the path to general truth. On the other hand, there is the attempt to be general and objective by pretending that one knows nothing about the experience of being human, forcing the investigator to pretend that people usually know and tell the truth about important issues, when we all know from our own lives how impossible that is."

― Richard C. Lewontin (1929-2021)