The Implications of Heterogeneity for the Philosophy, History, Sociology, and Science of Biological Determinism

在遗传学研究和更广泛的社会科学中，定量分析可以通过关注构成观察到的特征的因素的可能异质性而转变。在科学社会学中，人们理解，思想不能仅仅通过正确的方式来实现其变革的潜力；相反，如果要克服来自主流的不可避免的阻力，就需要改变该领域的社会结构。此外，在许多研究人员开始转变之前，必须开放替代研究项目；仅有批评是不足以让主导范式被抛弃的。在这种变化中，科学和社会研究(S和S)能起到什么作用？这项探索性研究的小额拨款计划确定了一些角度，通过这些角度，派和其他S和S学者可能会在研究和政策上关注异质性的影响。适度的支持将允许PI追求两条途径，通过这两条途径，新想法可以在足够长的时间内获得关注，如果不是被更广泛的受众接受的话。第一个轨道将调查S和S的四个问题，这些问题扩展了国际社会最近关于遗传性和异质性的工作，它将在早期、进行中的阶段对这些调查进行适当的受众和研讨会的审查，以期刺激专家更深入地研究这些问题，并动员合作和协会在这种新出现的研究中相互支持。第二个轨道将通过为期一周的密集培训和讨论访问，探索一些科学方法，这些方法可能有助于开发经经验验证的发展路径模型，其组成部分是不同的，在任何一个时期和几代人之间都不同。S和S夫妇的调查和与科学家的接触相结合，旨在促进对遗传性话语的积极批评，并使PI能够确定PI不同寻常的兴趣和技能组合的最大杠杆的位置和方向，这些组合不仅存在于S和S夫妇身上，而且存在于生命科学的定量分析中。PI预计将在SGER支持的工作的基础上提交一份重要的研究提案。这项工作的学术价值在于发展了一些在科学和S和S关于“基因与环境”的研究中被忽视或没有得到很好欣赏的观点，尽管关于智商测试分数的遗传性和种族群体平均分数差异的基因解释的科学和政策辩论由来已久，充满政治色彩。更广泛的影响将是，推动流行的讨论超越关于基因和环境对人类特征的相对贡献的有问题的观点，关键地揭示人们对解释以种族为基础的群体平均水平差异的持续兴趣，并刺激科学研究以及S和S以适应异质性的方式对发展路径的研究。

Quantitative analysis in the study of heredity and in social sciences more generally could be transformed through attention to the possible heterogeneity of factors that underlie observed traits. It is understood in the sociology of science that ideas do not realize their transformative potential simply by being correct; rather, changes in the social structure of the field are needed if the inevitable resistance from the mainstream is to be overcome. Moreover, alternative research programs have to be opened up before many researchers begin to shift; critique is not sufficient for a dominant paradigm to be abandoned. What role can studies of science and society (S&S) have in such change? This Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) proposal identifies a number of angles through which the PI and other S&S scholars might bring attention in research and policy to the implications of heterogeneity. Modest support would allow the PI to pursue two tracks through which novel ideas can "gestate" long enough to command attention, if not acceptance, by a wider audience. The first track would investigate four issues in S&S that extend the PI's recent work on heritability and heterogeneity, and it would subject these investigations at an early, work-in-progress stage to the scrutiny of appropriate audiences and workshops with a view to stimulating specialists to delve deeper into these issues, and mobilizing collaborations and associations to support one other in such emergent research. The second track would explore, through intensive week-long training and discussion visits, a number of scientific approaches that may contribute to developing empirically validated models of developmental pathways whose components are heterogeneous and differ among individuals at any one time and over generations. The combination of S&S investigations and engagement with scientists is designed to promote positive critique of heritability discourse, and to allow the PI to identify the place and direction of most leverage for the PI's unusual combination of interests and skills, which lie not only in S&S but also in quantitative analyses in the life sciences. The PI anticipates submission of a major research proposal on the basis of the SGER-supported work. The intellectual merit of the work lies in the development of ideas that have been overlooked or not well appreciated in the science and S&S studies of "genes and environment," despite the long and politically charged history of scientific and policy debates about the heritability of IQ test scores and genetic explanations of the differences between the mean scores for racial groups. The broader impact will be to move popular discussion beyond problematic ideas about the relative contribution of genes and environment to human traits, shed critical light on the persistent interest in explaining differences among the averages for groups defined on racial grounds, and stimulate scientific and S&S research on developmental pathways in ways that accommodate heterogeneity.