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Biological Determinism
Biological determinism, also known as genetic determinism, is the belief that human behaviour is directly controlled by an individual's genes or some component of their physiology, generally at the expense of the role of the environment, whether in embryonic development or in learning. Genetic reductionism is a similar concept, but it is distinct from genetic determinism in that the former refers to the level of understanding, while the latter refers to the supposed causal role of genes. Biological determinism has been associated with movements in science and society including eugenics, scientific racism, and the debates around the heritability of IQ, the basis of sexual orientation, and evolutionary foundations of cooperation in sociobiology. In 1892, the German evolutionary biologist August Weismann proposed in his germ plasm theory that heritable information is transmitted only via germ cells, which he thought contained determinants (genes). The English polymath Francis G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy Of Science (journal)
''Philosophy of Science'' is dedicated to the furthering of studies and free discussion from diverse standpoints in the philosophy of science. It is a peer-reviewed academic journal. Official affiliations In January 1934 ''Philosophy of Science'' announced itself as the chief external expression of the Philosophy of Science Association, which seems to have been the expectation of its founder, William Malisoff. The journal is currently the official journal of the Association, which Philipp Frank and C. West Churchman formally constituted in December 1947. Publication history Malisoff, who was independently wealthy, seems to have financed the launch of ''Philosophy of Science''. Correspondingly he became its first editor. In the first issue he sought papers ranging from studies on "the analysis of meaning, definition, symbolism," in scientific theories to those on "the nature and formulation of theoretical principles" and "in the function and significance of science within various ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel George Morton
Samuel George Morton (January 26, 1799 – May 15, 1851) was an American physician, natural scientist, and writer. As one of the early figures of scientific racism, he argued against monogenism, the single creation story of the Bible, instead supporting polygenism, a theory of multiple racial creations. He was a prolific writer of books on various subjects from 1823 to 1851. He wrote ''Geological Observations'' in 1828, and both ''Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Cretaceous Group of the United States'' and ''Illustrations of Pulmonary Consumption'' in 1834. His first medical essay, on the use of cornine in intermittent fever was published in the '' Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences'' in 1825. His bibliography includes ''Hybridity in Animals and Plants'' (1847), ''Additional Observation on Hybridity'' (1851), and ''An Illustrated System of Human Anatomy'' (1849). Early life and career Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Morton was raised as a Quake ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Dogma Of Molecular Biology
The central dogma of molecular biology deals with the flow of genetic information within a biological system. It is often stated as "DNA makes RNA, and RNA makes protein", although this is not its original meaning. It was first stated by Francis Crick in 1957, then published in 1958: He re-stated it in a ''Nature'' paper published in 1970: "The central dogma of molecular biology deals with the detailed residue-by-residue transfer of sequential information. It states that such information cannot be transferred back from protein to either protein or nucleic acid." A second version of the central dogma is popular but incorrect. This is the simplistic DNA → RNA → protein pathway published by James Watson in the first edition of ''The Molecular Biology of the Gene'' (1965). Watson's version differs from Crick's because Watson describes a two-step (DNA → RNA and RNA → protein) process as the central dogma. While the dogma as originally stated by Crick remains valid today, Wat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lamarckism
Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also called the inheritance of acquired characteristics or more recently soft inheritance. The idea is named after the French zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), who incorporated the classical era theory of soft inheritance into his theory of evolution as a supplement to his concept of orthogenesis, a drive towards Evolution of biological complexity, complexity. Introductory textbooks contrast Lamarckism with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. However, Darwin's book ''On the Origin of Species'' gave credence to the idea of heritable effects of use and disuse, as Lamarck had done, and his own concept of pangenesis similarly implied soft inheritance. Many researchers from the 1860s onwards attempted to find evidence ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene
In biology, the word gene has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protein-coding genes and non-coding genes. During gene expression (the synthesis of Gene product, RNA or protein from a gene), DNA is first transcription (biology), copied into RNA. RNA can be non-coding RNA, directly functional or be the intermediate protein biosynthesis, template for the synthesis of a protein. The transmission of genes to an organism's offspring, is the basis of the inheritance of phenotypic traits from one generation to the next. These genes make up different DNA sequences, together called a genotype, that is specific to every given individual, within the gene pool of the population (biology), population of a given species. The genotype, along with environmental and developmental factors, ultimately determines the phenotype ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Somatic Cell
In cellular biology, a somatic cell (), or vegetal cell, is any biological cell forming the body of a multicellular organism other than a gamete, germ cell, gametocyte or undifferentiated stem cell. Somatic cells compose the body of an organism and divide through mitosis. In contrast, gametes derive from meiosis within the germ cells of the germline and they fuse during sexual reproduction. Stem cells also can divide through mitosis, but are different from somatic in that they differentiate into diverse specialized cell types. In mammals, somatic cells make up all the internal organs, skin, bones, blood and connective tissue, while mammalian germ cells give rise to spermatozoa and ova which fuse during fertilization to produce a cell called a zygote, which divides and differentiates into the cells of an embryo. There are approximately 220 types of somatic cell in the human body. Theoretically, these cells are not germ cells (the source of gametes); they transmit their mut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Insects
Eusociality (Greek 'good' and social) is the highest level of organization of sociality. It is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups. The division of labor creates specialized behavioral groups within an animal society, sometimes called castes. Eusociality is distinguished from all other social systems because individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform behaviors characteristic of individuals in another caste. Eusocial colonies can be viewed as superorganisms. Eusociality has evolved among the insects, crustaceans, trematoda and mammals. It is most widespread in the Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps) and in Isoptera (termites). A colony has caste differences: queens and reproductive males take the roles of the sole reproducers, while soldiers and work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BioScience
''BioScience'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that is published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. It was established in 1964 and was preceded by the ''AIBS Bulletin'' (1951–1963). The journal publishes literature reviews of current research in biology, as well as essays and discussion sections on education, public policy, history of biology, and theoretical issues. Abstracting and indexing The journal is abstracted and indexed in MEDLINE/ PubMed (1973–1979), the Science Citation Index, Current Contents/Agriculture, Biology & Environmental Sciences, The Zoological Record, and BIOSIS Previews. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2020 impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a type of journal ranking. Journals with higher impact factor values are considered more prestigious or important within their field. The Impa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epigenetics
In biology, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression that happen without changes to the DNA sequence. The Greek prefix ''epi-'' (ἐπι- "over, outside of, around") in ''epigenetics'' implies features that are "on top of" or "in addition to" the traditional (DNA sequence based) genetic mechanism of inheritance. Epigenetics usually involves a change that is not erased by cell division, and affects the regulation of gene expression. Such effects on cellular and physiological traits may result from environmental factors, or be part of normal development. The term also refers to the mechanism of changes: functionally relevant alterations to the genome that do not involve mutation of the nucleotide sequence. Examples of mechanisms that produce such changes are DNA methylation and histone modification, each of which alters how genes are expressed without altering the underlying DNA sequence. Further, non-coding RNA sequences have been shown to play a key role in the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nature And Nurture
Nature versus nurture is a long-standing debate in biology and society about the relative influence on human beings of their genetic inheritance (nature) and the environmental conditions of their development ( nurture). The alliterative expression "nature and nurture" in English has been in use since at least the Elizabethan period and goes back to medieval French. The complementary combination of the two concepts is an ancient concept (). Nature is what people think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and other biological factors. Nurture is generally taken as the influence of external factors after conception e.g. the product of exposure, experience and learning on an individual. The phrase in its modern sense was popularized by the Victorian polymath Francis Galton, the modern founder of eugenics and behavioral genetics when he was discussing the influence of heredity and environment on social advancement. Galton was influenced by ''On the Origin of Sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intelligence Quotient
An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. Originally, IQ was a score obtained by dividing a person's mental age score, obtained by administering an intelligence test, by the person's chronological age, both expressed in terms of years and months. The resulting fraction (quotient) was multiplied by 100 to obtain the IQ score. For modern #Current tests, IQ tests, the test score, raw score is Data transformation (statistics), transformed to a normal distribution with mean 100 and standard deviation 15. This results in approximately two-thirds of the population scoring between IQ 85 and IQ 115 and about 2 percent each Intellectual giftedness, above 130 and Intellectual disability, below 70. Scores from intelligence tests are estimates of intelligence. Unlike, for example, distance and mass, a concrete measure of intelligence cannot be achieved given the abstract nature of the concept o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
