Richard C. Lewontin
Against "Sociobiology"
A letter from Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin and members of the Sociobiology Study Group outlining criticisms of, and objections to, EO Wilson's 'Sociobiology: the new synthesis'
New York Review of Books, Volume 22, Number 18 · November 13, 1975
In response to Mindless Societies* (August 7, 1975)
The following letter was prepared by a group of university faculty and scientists, high school teachers, doctors, and students who work in the Boston area.
To the Editors:
Stephen Jay Gould: What Does it Mean to Be a Radical?
Marxist biologists Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins remember the life and career of paleontologist and science writer Stephen Jay Gould, and his role in the social criticism of science.
Early this year, Stephen Gould developed lung cancer, which spread so quickly that there was no hope of survival. He died on May 20, 2002, at the age of sixty. Twenty years ago, he had escaped death from mesothelioma, induced, we all supposed, by some exposure to asbestos.
The political economy of hybrid corn
Marxist geneticist Richard Lewontin and economist Jean-Pierre Berlan discuss the economics of and role of capital in the production of hybrid corn. This article follows their 'Technology, research, and the penetration of capital: the case of U.S. agriculture' article.
Source: Monthly Review, July-August, 1986 by Jean-Pierre Berlan, R.C. Lewontin
Technology, research, and the penetration of capital: the case of U.S. agriculture
Economist Jean-Pierre Berlan and marxist geneticist Richard Lewontin reveal the politics and economics behind 1980s US agribusiness.
Source: Monthly Review, July-August, 1986 by R.C. Lewontin, Jean-Pierre Berlan
The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme
Gould and Lewontin's oft-cited paper criticising what they see as the over-reliance on adaptationist explanations of many biologists.
"The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique Of The Adaptationist Programme," Proceedings Of The Royal Society of London, Series B, Vol. 205, No. 1161 (1979), Pp. 581-598.
The commoditization of science
Ecologist Richard Levins and geneticist Richard Lewontin argue that modern science has been fully incorporated into the process of capitalism, and is subject to the same conditions as any other commodity.
They discuss the implications this has for scientific research, and the influence of bourgeois ideology on the thinking of scientists. The essay is taken from their 1985 book, The Dialectical Biologist.
