The Social Construction of Life:

Critical Thinking about Biology in Society

(version 2 February 2019)

Introduction

"The Social Construction of Life." What does this title mean to you? Take a minute and jot down your thoughts.
While you do this, here is a non-distracting graphic.


What was your response to being asked this at the outset? What did you feel? Think? Do? Take another minute and explore your responses? Be honest.
An other non-distracting graphic.



Probably most of you just turned over the pages to see what point I intended to make by starting with these questions. I could make you wait if this were a lecture you were listening to. If you were students, I could have used my authority as a teacher to get you to write down something. But this is a book so I cannot enforce readers' compliance with my directions. Let me then move on and explain the meaning and associations I attach to key terms, then provide an overview of the themes that unfold over the chapters. But first, note that:

• I value people not accepting anything without questioning.
• I am also prepared for you, the readers, to feel disturbed or even anxious, unsure of what constitutes the expected response.
• I want to open for your questioning many issues which you might have taken to be well established or which you would previously have waited for someone else to provide complete and tidy answers for.

Overview of Themes and Terms

This book aims to expand the boundaries of the influences that readers consider when interpreting the practices and products of the life sciences ("biology") and their impact on society. In this spirit, "science" is not just a knowledge-generating dialogue between theory and reality, but

• an outlet for curiosity
• a body of accepted knowledge
• a process of establishing knowledge
• what scientists do
• institutions (laboratories, professional associations, funding agencies, journals, etc.)
• a source of social authority
• a producer of social impacts.

At each level social action is occurring, which involves

• the use of language
• making one's life and work in a particular time and place, and from a (possibly changing) social position
• economic relations
• political conflict and negotiation.

Given this diversity of social considerations, the relations between biology and society is constructed, in the sense both of

• a building which is made of many different materials, and
• an interpretation drawing upon precedents and established assumptions.

Moreover, this social construction of life connects not only the life sciences, but also

• living processes
• groups of people's lives and livelihood
• the reader's own life.

When I define critical thinking I point to inquiry that is informed by a strong sense of how things could be otherwise. I believe that people understand things better when they have placed established assumptions, themes, facts, theories, practices, and social relations in tension with alternatives. [C]ritical thinking as I define it does not depend on my readers rejecting conventional accounts and adopting some alternative dogma. It does, however, require you to move through places of uncertainty. This book destabilizes established approaches, raises many propositions well in advance of demonstrating them, and invites you to use the propositions in your own thinking and writing—to experiment, take risks, and through experience develop tools that work for you.

In the spirit of critical thinking, we can place in tension the idea that something is constructed with the idea that it is determined. In construction (in sense of building, not of interpretation):

• Many different kinds of components are linked together over time, each step building on what has already been constructed. This implies that:
• The outcome has multiple contributing causes, and thus:
• There are multiple points of intervention or engagement that could modify the course of development.

In contrast, when something is determined:

• The links between proposed causes and outcome are direct, e.g., severe depression is a biochemical imbalance.
• Few steps are involved in the causation and a single kind or small number of causes dominate.
• Few opportunities arise for things to have happened differently, in particular, social policy will not be able to change the outcome greatly.

Interpreting Ideas of Nature
Broad-brush themes:

• What is said or written, instead of being taken literally, can be interpreted so as to expose what is only implicit.
• In the spirit of critical thinking, consider the contrast between, on one hand, "When I hear people say, 'Nature tells us..' I hear them telling me their views about the way they want people/society to do things" and, on the other hand, "I still think it is important to know what is natural and what is unnatural. Otherwise anything is acceptable."
• Interpretation of ideas of nature (following Williams 1980): They are often invoked to justify aspects of the social order, usually aspects becoming problematic at that particular historical juncture, or proposed alternatives to the social order. So, when we hear people debating what nature is or what is natural, we can ask ourselves what it is about society that is being debated.

The structure of origin stories
Interpret story-telling, focusing on origin stories both outside science and inside.

• Story tellers select elements and arrange them in a sequence. Selection and arrangement simplify the complexity of influences needing to be considered to understand the outcome and cover over the uncertain or unknowable information. The story-teller not only gives emphasis or credence to the outcome, but can also try to make plausible the causality implied in the story.


• Stories are more compelling if they adopt a familiar structure and if they resonate with other stories.
• The influence of structural (or structuring) themes can be seen by identifying them and asking what would happen to the account if an opposing or alternative theme were employed.
• Playing one theme off against another and creating some interpretive tension is an example of critical thinking in the sense of understanding ideas or practice better by holding them in tension with alternatives.


• Origin stories are important because they are used to make sense of and often to justify the state of affairs we find ourselves in now.
• Many scientific accounts can be read as stories or narratives (Landau as described in Lewin), especially when
  1. they attempt to deal with uncertain or unknowable information, e.g., in accounts of origins—meaning both the point of origin and the subsequent history—and evolution; or
  2. with many connections and causes rather than a few experimentally controlled factors.

Multiple layers in influencing an audience: The case of Darwin's On the Origin of Species
Having been sensitized to the story telling aspect of scientific writing, to the dominant structural themes adopted in accounts or origins, and to the ideas of nature that were invoked before Darwin to support ideas of the social order (whether that was the actual, idealised, or desired order), we are now in a better position to read Darwin and interpret his ideas on evolution and on the means by which it occurs.

• Williams's account of the history of ideas of nature conveys a general trend: Ever increasing interaction of societies with/in nature -> idea that nature has a history -> evolutionary theories of nature -> contested issue: do humans evolve too?
• Darwin's specific contribution: The idea that everything in nature is adapted to its place, but that this is the result of an on-going struggle for existence, not given by creation once and for all.
• Broad-brush interpretation of Darwin's idea about how evolution happens: The idea of evolution by natural selection relates to and supports a dominant idea about social order, namely, that one’s place in society is a result of a natural process of selection, and, given that the result is adapted, this is right/ justifiable/ as good as we could hope for.
• Such an interpretation raises a question: What did Darwin actually do in his scientific research that resulted in a theory that fits that social interpretation?
  Answer: To influence his audience in 1859 England, he carefully built up multiple layers in his scientific theory: argument, analogy, metaphor, and defences.

Metaphors of Coordination and Development

• Until the 1920s, biological inheritance had much broader connotations than transmission of something discrete (which we now call genes). It also included development. After all, when it is said that a person resembles their parent, two aspects of the transmission of traits to offspring are being raised: how does an offspring develop to have the trait in question at all, e.g., its eye color, and how does the outcome of the development at some point in the lifespan differ from that person to the rest of the family or population. What, then is the relationship between the study of development and the study of difference? What is the role of genes in both? Competing answers to these questions are evident in the contrast between the work of Just and Goldschmidt in the early decades of the twentieth century.
• Interpreting the work of Darwin has introduced the role of metaphor in scientific theories and their presentation to an audience. The account by Gilbert of Just versus Goldschmidt revolves around his interpretation of the metaphors underlying their work.
• Extend this to the present: Explore alternative metaphors of or analogies to embryological development that do not rely on a central controller but capture the ability of the organism to co-ordinate its own differentiation and change and thereby make itself.

What causes a disease?—the consequences of hereditarianism in the case of pellagra

• The causes proposed reflect the social actions desired or supported given that
• the categories used (and thus data collected)
• assumptions needed to make causal claims from patterns
  • are places where social assumptions can influence the scientist's decision, and
  • science cannot be done without decisions in these areas

• When people make explanations, you may look at how they attempted to identify or locate the causation and consider alternative styles of causal explanation. If a scientist is emphasizing, say, a unitary cause, consider the multiple factors they are excluding.
• This approach will help you raise questions about the other commitments that influence their choice of questions, categories, factors, and admissable explanations. The causal explanation that is advanced often corresponds to the person's commitments to certain forms of social action, e.g. Galton (Darwin's cousin) didn't measure any environmental variables and was thus able only to reach conclusions about (supposedly) inborn characters; Davenport and others similarly denied the significance of Goldberger's experimental evidence for dietary basis of pellagra.

• Identification of more proximate causes (e.g., a lung cancer gene) is not necessarily needed to ensure the most effective action (e.g., we can encourage people to stop smoking independently of knowing the genetic mechanisms of lung cancer).

How changeable are IQ test scores?

• A continuation of the critical thinking theme of interpreting scientific ideas in relation to the actions favored by the exponents of those ideas is to pose questions that can be asked of all sides: What can we do (on the basis of the science)? What more would we need to find out before being confident in answering the first question?
• By unpacking the debate between Lewontin and Jensen, the following themes should emerge:
  • There are no simple explanation about genetics and socially significant traits, especially regarding average racial differences. Therefore: be skeptical of anyone who proposes such an explanation (i.e., scrutinize where they are coming from).
  • There are researchers who have detailed, often technical cases to make (even if their conclusion is quite simple, e.g., Jensen believes it is plausible that genes account for (average) racial differences). Their argument can be teased out into their components (in this case, with help from Lewontin, who can handle the technical side and has views about the political/social implications and underpinnings of the science).
  • What can we do (on the basis of the science) is worth asking of all sides. (Jensen thinks we have tried and failed to equalize education so educate people according to their innate capacities [actually, educate people according to the typological generalization about the average differences between the races]; Lewontin thinks educational professionals have not tried very hard and when society is committed to equalizing education ways will be found.)

Social negotiations around genetic screening

• The debate about the changeability of IQ test scores (Jensen vs. Lewontin) referred to the heritability of IQ test scores, but no actual genes. It also referred to the limitations and possibilities of education, but did not focus on specific educational projects—how they succeeded or failed and in what circumstances. In contrast, this session examines how specific groups (or "voices") in society shape or are involved in the application of knowledge about specific genes.
• Rapp draws our attention to many constituencies and voices in the arena or reproductive interventions, in contrast to the dominance of white, male experts and a medical model: "Until we locate and listen to the discourses of women who encounter and interpret a new reproductive technology in their own lives, we cannot go beyond a medical model." Medical model = individual risks, benefits and choices (aided by dominant metaphors of human perfectibility and individuals holding within them their potential) vs. situated, social responses, e.g. social support for the disabled, Down Syndrome support groups.
• In the case of phenylketonuria (PKU), Paul (1998) shows that significant complexities should be expected to arise if neonatal genetic diagnosis and advice about risks and about possible protective measures become widespread. Moreover, just as there are many voices that could be listened to in understanding how to use new genetic information, there are diverse influences to which PKU individuals are subject on their pathways of development over their life course.

Intersecting processes involving genes and environment

• This chapter extends perspectives from the previous two—the debate about the changeability of IQ test scores and the possible involvement of multiple voices in the application of knowledge about specific genes—by tracing "intersecting processes"—the sequence of multiple causes building on each other over the individual’s life history. This account of causality permits a number of conclusions about nature-nurture debates:
• Neither the unchangeability of genes nor the reliability of some gene- or biochemistry-based intervention would prove that the genes are the most significant cause of the behavior or disease that has been occurring in the absence of such treatment.
• Critics of genetic explanations could dismiss the attribution of an individual’s behavior to genes (or 50% or 80% to genes) as a technically meaningless partitioning of variation without placing themselves at the other pole from genetic determination. That is, they would not have to make the counterclaim that the environment determines behavior or that, if the right environment were found, any desired behavior could be elicited. An intersecting processes account addresses malleability or immalleability of behavioral outcomes without ruling out genetic contributions.
• Similarly, critics would not need to rest their case on demonstrations that behavioral genetics has been or still is methodologically flawed, on textual deconstructions of the categories and rhetoric employed, or on attributions of political bias to the supporters of behavioral geneticists. These are all interesting, but, in light of an intersecting processes account of the behavior, not necessary for a conceptual critique of genetic determinism.
• There are multiple points of intervention or engagement that could modify the course of development.

Looking back; looking forward
The introduction stated that social action involves the use of language, making one's life and work in a particular time and place, and from a (possibly changing) social position, economic relations, and political conflict and negotiation. The chapters have emphasized the first two features. However, in the illustrations of intersecting processes—the social origins of depression in a population of working-class women and soil erosion in Oaxaca—economics and politics are evident. Future chapters that may be added would give more explicit attention to the contribution of economic relations and political conflict and negotiation to the social construction of life.

Structure of chapters

1. Introduce simple theme(s), building on previous sessions
1b. amplified by mini-lecture (which might include interactive activity)

2. Precis of reading with directions about reading the full work

3. Activity so students can work with simple theme, but then
3b. see its shortcomings

4. Synthesis and extensions: notes summarizing themes in more complex formulation
4b. including notes on pedagogical issues

5. Connections and resources, e.g., annotations to additional readings
5b. Online forum, through which students can provide suggestions and resources for revising the chapter
5c. Adaptation of themes from the chapter to students' own projects of learning about or engaging with biology in its social context: Suggestions for how to do that.

Boxes (or exhibits) referred to (i.e., linked in the online version) follow at the end of the five sections.