Another Way to Think About Biology
Another Way to Think About Biology
|
The Institute for Historical Biology IHB provides
a space where the interaction of human biology and culture can be examined
in new ways. The Institute fosters research that departs from
biological reductionism in order to consider the organic effects of
the learned relations of society. How have diverse social conditions
produced differences in the physiological, developmental, pathological,
morphological, and genetic characteristics of human populations?
How has the history of political, economic, and ideological change altered
social relations, societal conditions and their biological effects?
These are some of the more encompassing questions for the IHB. The biological
reflections of social history can raise unexpected questions, fill gaps
in historical information, or strengthen the documentary and archaeological
record by the peculiar authority of biological evidence. |
|
The
IHB also provides an intellectual space for a critique of human biological
theory and method. Culture does not only influence the organisms
we study. Culture influences the professions of human biology
and the ways their practitioners think about biology and society.
The history of biological thought is replete with changing political,
economic, and ideological influences. Thus the Institute seeks
to foster “new ways” of understanding biological variation and change
partly by encouraging researchers to be considerate of the cultural
assumptions and motivations involved in research design.
Equally important, scrutiny of scientific racism, sexism, classism,
and other apologetic ideologies opens dialogue on an expanded range
of societal possibilities that may strengthen the democratic or humanistic
development of the world in which we live.
|
