Class notes
Lecture 4: History & Concepts 1
- Course
- BIOC70
- Institution
- University Of Toronto (U Of T )
This lecture focuses on eugenics and the heritability of IQ.
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
Content preview
Clones- Exact copy of genetic differences
What is psychological essentialism?
- Essence
- Outward features
- Deeper features
- Essentialism is a cognitive bias
● Certain categories of people
● A similar quality or essence that cannot be observed directly but that
○ Determines identity
○ Give rise to similarities shared by category members
○ Related to observable features of members
● For example, people with glasses are smart
- Biological mechanisms can provide justification for psychological essentialism
Psychological essentialism: language matters
- Psychological essentialism becomes genetic essentialism when you add research
What is genetic essentialism?
- Inferring a person’s characteristics and behaviours from their genetic makeup
- the ‘genetic basis’ for some categories of people is believed
- to be the ‘essence’ of that category of people
- The category we perceive should be distinct from others
- Just because something is natural does not mean its good
What is Race?
- Race is a concept used to group people that share a set of visible characteristics
such as skin, colour, and facial features
- Visible characteristics influenced by genes
- But the vast majority of genetic variation exists within racial groups
and not between
- Race is related to ancestral background
- Race is a social construct
- Genes determine physical characteristics but do not predict variation in the rest of the
genome
When might genetic essentialism be reasonable?
- When traits arise from variation in one or a few genes
- Reasonable to talk about genetic essentialism
- Eye colour
- Presence of freckles or dimples
- Ability to roll your tongue
- Broccoli tastes bitter (those people have an allele)
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller tiffanyfung. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for CA$11.80. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
52355 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now