TY - JOUR
T1 - Writing Amish culture into genes
T2 - Biological reductionism in a study of manic depression
AU - Floersch, Jerry
AU - Longhofer, Jeffrey
AU - Latta, Kristine
N1 - Funding Information:
Research was generously supported by a University of Missouri-Kansas City Faculty Research Grant (summer 1994). We wish to thank Emily Martin for her insightful comments on a late draft of the paper.
PY - 1997/6
Y1 - 1997/6
N2 - Critical realism is used to explore the problem of reductionism in a classic (the Amish Study) and widely-cited study of manic depression. Along with related ideas drawn from the works of R.C. Lewontin, Arthur Kleinman, and Byron Good, it is shown that natural and social scientists deploy atomistic and holistic reductionism; this, in turn, leads to the construction of artificially 'closed systems' through the control of variables or exogenous forces. The psychiatric genetic studies of the Amish were predicated on the assumption that Amish society is homogeneous and unchanging and, therefore, closed. We conclude by arguing that interactions between behaviors and genes, where they exist, take place only within open systems, characterized by multiple mechanisms - social and biological - that together co-determine any event. To move forward, it is argued, behavior and gene research requires recognition and resolution of the philosophical conundrums that accompany reductionism.
AB - Critical realism is used to explore the problem of reductionism in a classic (the Amish Study) and widely-cited study of manic depression. Along with related ideas drawn from the works of R.C. Lewontin, Arthur Kleinman, and Byron Good, it is shown that natural and social scientists deploy atomistic and holistic reductionism; this, in turn, leads to the construction of artificially 'closed systems' through the control of variables or exogenous forces. The psychiatric genetic studies of the Amish were predicated on the assumption that Amish society is homogeneous and unchanging and, therefore, closed. We conclude by arguing that interactions between behaviors and genes, where they exist, take place only within open systems, characterized by multiple mechanisms - social and biological - that together co-determine any event. To move forward, it is argued, behavior and gene research requires recognition and resolution of the philosophical conundrums that accompany reductionism.
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U2 - 10.1023/A:1005352727300
DO - 10.1023/A:1005352727300
M3 - Article
C2 - 9248676
AN - SCOPUS:0031154792
SN - 0165-005X
VL - 21
SP - 137
EP - 159
JO - Culture, medicine and psychiatry
JF - Culture, medicine and psychiatry
IS - 2
ER -