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Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health

Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health

How do we understand the world? While some look to the heavens for intelligent design, others argue that it is determined by information encoded in DNA. Science serves as an important activity for uncovering the processes and operations of nature, but it is also immersed in a social context where ideology influences the questions we ask and how we approach the material world. Biology Under the Influence breaks from the confines of determinism, offering a dialectical analysis for comprehending a dynamic social and natural world. | more…

Stephen Jay Gould—What Does It Mean To Be a Radical?

What Does it Mean to Be a Radical?

Early this year, Stephen Gould developed lung cancer, which spread so quickly that there was no hope of survival. He died on May 20, 2002, at the age of sixty. Twenty years ago, he had escaped death from mesothelioma, induced, we all supposed, by some exposure to asbestos. Although his cure was complete, he never lost the consciousness of his mortality and gave the impression, at least to his friends, of an almost cheerful acceptance of the inevitable. Having survived one cancer that was probably the consequence of an environmental poison, he succumbed to another | more…

Richard C. Lewontin

The Political Economy of Hybrid Corn

In bourgeois society a violation of property rights is the supreme injustice. Hybrids provided a solution in agriculture. Commercial hybrids decrease the yield of the following generation. This means that farmers have to renew their seed every year. Hence, hybrids create a perpetual market for seed. | more…