genetic reductionism

{{short description|Belief that genetics explains all aspects of human behavior}}

Genetic reductionism is the belief that understanding genes is sufficient to understand all aspects of human behavior.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ImdQDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA138 |title=A Student's Dictionary of Psychology and Neuroscience |last1=Hayes |first1=Nicky |last2=Stratton |first2=Peter |date=2017-09-01 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781351803199 |pages=138 |language=en}} 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.{{Cite journal |last=McAfee |first=Kathleen |date=2003-05-01 |title=Neoliberalism on the molecular scale. Economic and genetic reductionism in biotechnology battles |journal=Geoforum |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=203–219 |doi=10.1016/S0016-7185(02)00089-1 |issn=0016-7185}} It also covers attempts to define specific phenomena in exclusively genetic terms, as in the case of the "warrior gene".{{cite journal |last1=Shanahan |first1=Michael J. |last2=Bauldry |first2=Shawn |last3=Freeman |first3=Jason |title=Beyond Mendel's Ghost |journal=Contexts |date=September 2010 |volume=9 |issue=4 |pages=34–39 |doi=10.1525/ctx.2010.9.4.34|doi-access=free }}

The concept has been criticized by many biologists.{{Cite journal |last=Regenmortel |first=M. H. V. Van |date=2004 |title=Biological complexity emerges from the ashes of genetic reductionism |journal=Journal of Molecular Recognition |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=145–148 |doi=10.1002/jmr.674 |pmid=15137021 |issn=1099-1352|doi-access=free }} 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..."{{Cite journal |last=Affifi |first=Ramsey |date=2017-04-01 |title=Genetic Engineering and Human Mental Ecology: Interlocking Effects and Educational Considerations |journal=Biosemiotics |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=75–98 |doi=10.1007/s12304-017-9286-7 |issn=1875-1350 |pmc=5437137 |pmid=28596811}} The genetic reductionist perspective can be appropriate when used to identify changes in specific genetic loci that cause differences in a given phenotype.{{Cite journal |last1=Martin |first1=Arnaud |last2=Morizot |first2=Baptiste |author3-link=Virginie Courtier-Orgogozo |last3=Orgogozo |first3=Virginie |date=2015 |title=The differential view of genotype–phenotype relationships |journal=Frontiers in Genetics |volume=6 |pages=179 |doi=10.3389/fgene.2015.00179 |issn=1664-8021 |pmc=4437230 |pmid=26042146|doi-access=free }}