Genetic reductionism explained

Genetic reductionism is the belief that understanding genes is sufficient to understand all aspects of human behavior.^[1] It is a specific form of reductionism and of biological determinism, based on a perspective which defines genes as distinct units of information with consistent properties.^[2] It also covers attempts to define specific phenomena in exclusively genetic terms, as in the case of the "warrior gene".^[3]

The concept has been criticized by many biologists.^[4] According to Affifi (2017), "With the discoveries of pleiotropy and epistasis, cracks in the reductionist paradigm emerged even before the rise of molecular biology, but the full extent of the interdependency and flexible adaptivity of the genome has really come to light in the past 10 years..."^[5] The genetic reductionist perspective can be appropriate when used to identify changes in specific genetic loci that cause differences in a given phenotype.^[6]

Notes and References

1. Book: A Student's Dictionary of Psychology and Neuroscience . Hayes . Nicky . Stratton . Peter . 2017-09-01 . . 9781351803199 . 138 . en.
2. McAfee . Kathleen . 2003-05-01 . Neoliberalism on the molecular scale. Economic and genetic reductionism in biotechnology battles . . 34 . 2 . 203–219 . 10.1016/S0016-7185(02)00089-1 . 0016-7185.
3. Shanahan . Michael J. . Bauldry . Shawn . Freeman . Jason . Beyond Mendel's Ghost . . September 2010 . 9 . 4 . 34–39 . 10.1525/ctx.2010.9.4.34. free .
4. Regenmortel . M. H. V. Van . 2004 . Biological complexity emerges from the ashes of genetic reductionism . . 17 . 3 . 145–148 . 10.1002/jmr.674 . 15137021 . 1099-1352. free .
5. Affifi . Ramsey . 2017-04-01 . Genetic Engineering and Human Mental Ecology: Interlocking Effects and Educational Considerations . . 10 . 1 . 75–98 . 10.1007/s12304-017-9286-7 . 1875-1350 . 5437137 . 28596811.
6. Martin . Arnaud . Morizot . Baptiste . Virginie Courtier-Orgogozo . Orgogozo . Virginie . 2015 . The differential view of genotype–phenotype relationships . . 6 . 179 . 10.3389/fgene.2015.00179 . 1664-8021 . 4437230 . 26042146. free .