Richard Lewontin: biography of this biologist

Lewontin is one of the most controversial evolutionary biologists, a strong opponent of genetic determinism.

Richard Lewontin is known within his field, evolutionary biology, as a controversial character. He is a strong opponent of genetic determinism, but he is nonetheless one of the greatest geneticists of the second half of the 20th century.

He is also a mathematician and evolutionary biologist, and has laid the foundations for the study of population genetics, as well as being a pioneer in the application of molecular biology techniques. Let's learn more about this researcher through a brief biography of Richard Lewontin. brief biography of Richard Lewontin.

Biography of Richard Lewontin

The following is a summary of the life of Richard Lewontin, who has been characterized by his study of population genetics and his criticism of traditionally Darwinian ideas.

Early years and training

Richard Charles 'Dick' Lewontin was born on March 29, 1929 in New York City, New York, to an immigrant family. to a Jewish immigrant family.

He attended Forest Hills High School and the École Libre des Hautes Études in New York and in 1951 graduated from Harvard University with a degree in biology. A year later he would receive a Master's degree in statistics, followed by a Ph.D. in zoology in 1945.

Professional career as a researcher

Lewontin has worked in the study of population genetics.. He is known for being one of the first people to perform a computer simulation of the behavior of a gene locus and how it would be inherited after a few generations.

Together with Ken-Ichi Kojima in 1960, they set a very important precedent in the history of biology, formulating equations that explained changes in haplotype frequencies in contexts of natural selection.. In 1966, together with Jack Hubby, he published a scientific paper that was a true revolution in the study of population genetics. Using the genes of the fly Drosophila pseudoobscurathey saw that on average there was a 15% chance that the individual was heterozygous, that is, that it had a combination of more than one allele for the same gene.

He has also studied genetic diversity in human populations. In 1972 he published an article in which indicated that most of the genetic variation, close to 85%, is to be found in local groupsThe differences attributed to the traditional concept of race do not represent more than 15% of the genetic diversity in the human species. This is why Lewontin has been almost radically opposed to any genetic interpretation that asserts that ethnic, social and cultural differences are a rigid product of genetic determination.

However, this statement has not gone unnoticed and other researchers have shown different opinions. For example, in 2003 A.W.F. Edwards, British geneticist and evolutionist, was critical of Lewontin's statements, saying that race, for better or worse, could still be considered a valid taxonomic construct.

View on evolutionary biology

Richard Lewontin's views on genetics are notable for his criticisms of other biologists. his criticisms of other evolutionary biologists.. In 1975, E. O. Wilson, an American biologist, proposed in his book Sociobiology evolutionary explanations of human social behavior. Lewontin has maintained a great controversy with sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists, such as Wilson or Richard Dawkins, who propose an explanation of animal behavior and social dynamics in terms of adaptive advantage.

According to these researchers, a social behavior will be maintained if it implies some kind of advantage within the group. Lewontin is not in favor of this assertion, and in several articles and one of his best-known works It's not in the genes has denounced the theoretical shortcomings of genetic reductionism..

In response to these statements, he proposed the concept of "enjuta". In evolutionary biology, a spandrel is the set of traits of an organism that exist as a necessary consequence so that other traits, perhaps adaptive or not, can occur, although they do not necessarily imply an improvement in its strength or survival in the environment in which it lives, i.e., this set of traits does not necessarily have to be adaptive.

At Organism and EnvironmentLewontin is critical of the traditionally Darwinian view that organisms are merely passive recipients of environmental influences.. For Richard Lewontin, organisms are capable of influencing their own environment, acting as active constructors. Ecological niches are not preformed, nor are they empty receptacles into which life forms are inserted just like that. These niches are defined and created by the life forms that inhabit them.

In the more adaptationist view of evolution, the environment is seen as something autonomous and independent of the organism, without the latter influencing the former or shaping it. On the other hand, Lewontin argues, from a more constructivist perspective, that the organism and the environment maintain a dialectical relationship, in which both influence each other mutually.in which both influence each other and change at the same time. Over the generations, the environment changes and individuals acquire both anatomical and behavioral changes.

Agribusiness

Richard Lewontin has written about the economic dynamics of agribusiness. He has argued that hybrid maize has developed and spread not because it is better than traditional maize, but because it has allowed agribusiness companies to develop and propagate hybrid maize.but because it has allowed agribusinesses to force farmers to buy new seeds every year instead of planting their traditional varieties.

This led him to testify in a lawsuit in California, trying to change state funding with respect to research into more productive seed varieties, considering that this implied a high interest for corporations and a detriment to the average American farmer.

Bibliographical references:

• Lewontin, R. C.; Kojima, K. (December 1960). "The Evolutionary Dynamics of Complex Polymorphisms". Evolution. Society for the Study of Evolution. 14 (4): 458-472. doi:10.2307/2405995.
• Lewontin, R. C. (January 1966). "Is Nature Probable or Capricious?". BioScience. University of California Press. 16 (1, Logic in Biological Investigation): 25-27. doi:10.2307/1293548.
• Lewontin, R. C. (1970). "The Units of Selection." Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. 1: 1-18. doi:10.1146/annurev.en.01.110170.000245.
• Lewontin, R. C. 1982. Agricultural research and the penetration of capital. Science for the People 14 (1): 12–17. http://www.science-for-the-people.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SftPv14n1s.pdf.
• Lewontin, R.C. 2000. The maturing of capitalist agriculture: farmer as proletarian. Pgs 93–106 in F. Magdoff, J. B. Foster, and F. H. Buttel, Eds. 2000. Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment. Monthly Review Press, NY.
• Lewontin, R. C. (2000) It Ain't Necessarily So: The Dream of the Human Genome and Other Illusions, New York Review of Books.