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| The Mirage of a Space between Nature and Nurture
ISBN: 9780822392811
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / Duke University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Heredity Human.; Nature and nurture.;
According to Keller (A Feeling for the Organism), a noted feminist philosopher and historian, the nature/nurture debate can be traced back to ancient Greek discussions of physis (timeless nature, or "what is") and nomos (law, custom, culture). But the author isn't out to mine history; she wants to examine how and why the simple act of placing the word "versus" between concepts of nature and nurture perpetuates the debate about the science of what shapes us. Her concern "is with the tendency to think of nature and nurture as separable and hence as comparable, as forces to which relative strength can be assigned..." She contends that much of the problem stems from "the instability of language"; even the meaning of words like "gene," "heritable," and "heritability" are problematic. Keller proves her points with a highly scientific and scholarly approach that may be too dense for the layperson. Yet her arguments, as academic as they are, relate to us all, and get at the essence of our differences. In the end, Keller is hopeful that "the new science of genetics" will offer a way out of the debate, and possibly eliminate the debate altogether. (Aug.) Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.
Evelyn Fox Keller (1936-2023) was Emerita Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was the author of numerous books, including Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors, and Machines ; The Century of the Gene ; Reflections on Gender and Science ; and A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock . She has been awarded many academic and professional honors, including a Blaise Pascal Research Chair by the Préfecture de la Région D'Ile-de-France for 2005-07, membership in the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a MacArthur Fellowship. |
