美国社会学界最近基因研究分析动向.docVIP

美国社会学界最近的基因研究动向 The Nature-Nurture Debate, ReduxGenetic research finally makes its way into the thinking of sociologistsBy CHRISTOPHER SHEAIf sociologists ignore genes, will other academics — and the wider world — ignore sociology?Some in the discipline are telling their peers just that. With study after study finding that all sorts of personal characteristics are heritable — along with behaviors shaped by those characteristics — a see-no-gene perspective is obsolete.Nor, these scholars argue, is it reasonable to concede that genes play some role but then to loftily assert that geneticists and the media overstate that role and to go on conducting studies as if genes did not exist. How, exactly, do genes shape human lives, interact with environmental forces, or get overpowered by those forces? We do ourselves a disservice if we dont engage in those arguments, says Jason Schnittker, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. If we stay on the ropes, people from a different perspective, with a more extreme view, will be making them.Schnittker is among the contributors to a special issue of the American Journal of Sociology, the fields flagship publication, devoted to Genetics and Social Structure — evidence that at least some sociologists are attempting to reckon with the genetic revolution. And not just in the AJS. Other top sociology journals, too, are publishing work incorporating genetic perspectives: The American Sociological Review in August published a much-discussed article on genes and delinquency by Guang Guo, of the University of North Carolina. (A couple of years ago, in an early foray on this front, Guo co-edited a special section of another top journal, Social Forces, titled The Linking of Sociology and Biology.)It is even possible to identify sociology departments in which gene-environment interactions amount to a subfield: Chapel Hill, for one. Its department boasts at least five tenured scholars who write on the subj