Richard Lewontin: biography of this biologist

Richard Lewontin is known within his field, evolutionary biology, as a controversial figure. He is a firm opponent of genetic determinism, but that does not mean he is one of the greatest geneticists of the second half of the 20th century.

He is also a mathematician and an 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 see more about this researcher through a short biography of Richard Lewontin.

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Biography of Richard Lewontin

Next we will see a summary of the life of Richard Lewontin, who has been characterized by studying population genetics and being critical of traditionally Darwinian ideas.

Early years and training

Richard Charles 'Dick' Lewontin was born on March 29, 1929 in New York. in the bosom of a family of Jewish immigrants.

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

Professional career as a researcher

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

Together with Ken-Ichi Kojima in 1960, they marked 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 article that revolutionized the study of population genetics. Using the genes of the fly Drosophila pseudoobscura, saw that on average there was a 15% chance that the individual was heterozygous, that is, that they had a combination of more than one allele for the same gene.

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

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

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View on evolutionary biology

Richard Lewontin's views on genetics are notable for his criticism of other evolutionary biologists. In 1975, E. EITHER. 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 advantage adaptive.

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 statement, and in several articles and one of his best-known works it is not in the geneshas denounced the theoretical shortcomings of genetic reductionism.

As a response to these statements, he proposed the concept of "spandrel". Within 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 perhaps not, can occur, although they do not necessarily imply an improvement in their strength or survival with respect to the environment in which it has had to live, that is, this set of traits does not necessarily have to be adaptive.

In Organism and Environment, Lewontin he is critical of the traditionally Darwinian view that organisms are mere passive recipients of environmental influences. For Richard Lewontin, organisms are capable of influencing their own environment, acting as active builders. 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 it.

In the most adaptationist vision of evolution, the environment is seen as something autonomous and independent of the organism, without the latter influencing the former or giving it shape. Instead, Lewontin argues, from a more constructivist perspective, that the organism and the environment maintain a dialectical relationship., in which both influence each other and change together. Throughout the generations the environment changes and individuals acquire both anatomical and behavioral changes.

agribusiness

Richard Lewontin has written about the economic dynamics of "agribusiness", translatable to agribusiness or agricultural business. He has argued that hybrid corn has been developed and propagated not because it is better than traditional corn., but because it has allowed companies in the agricultural sector to force farmers to buy new seeds every year instead of planting their old varieties.

This led him to testify in a lawsuit in California, seeking to change state funding regarding varietal research. more productive seeds, considering that this implied a high interest for corporations and a detriment to the average North American farmer.

Bibliographic 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.es.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.