Project knowledge and its resituation in the design of research projects: Seymour Benzer's behavioral genetics, 1965-1974

The article introduces a framework for analyzing the knowledge that researchers draw upon when designing a research project by distinguishing four types of "project knowledge": goal knowledge, which concerns possible outcomes, and three forms of implementation knowledge that concern the realization of the project: 1) methodological knowledge that specifies possible experimental and non-experimental strategies to achieve the chosen goal; 2) representational knowledge that suggests ways to represent data, hypotheses, or outcomes; and 3) organizational knowledge that helps to build or navigate the material and social structures that enable a project. In the design of research projects such knowledge will be transferred from other successful projects and these processes will be analyzed in terms of modes of resituating knowledge. The account is developed by analyzing a case from the history of biology. In a reciprocal manner, it enables a better understanding of the historical episode in question: around 1970, several researchers who had made successful careers in the emerging field of molecular biology, working with bacterial model systems, attempted to create a molecular biology of the physiological processes in multicellular organisms. One of them was Seymour Benzer, who designed a research project addressing the physiological processes underlying behavior in Drosophila.

The strengths of the genetic approach to understanding neural systems development and function: Ray Guillery's synthesis

The organization and function of sensory systems, especially the mammalian visual system, has been the focus of philosophers and scientists for centuries-from Descartes and Newton onward. Nevertheless, the utility of understanding development and its genetic foundations for deeper insight into neural function has been debated: Do you need to know how something is assembled-a car, for example-to understand how it works or how to use it-to turn on the ignition and drive? This review addresses this issue for sensory pathways. The pioneering work of the late Rainer W. (Ray) Guillery provides an unequivocal answer to this central question: Using genetics for mechanistic exploration of sensory system development yields essential knowledge of organization and function. Ray truly built the foundation for this now accepted tenet of modern neuroscience. His work on the development and reorganization of visual pathways in albino mammals-all with primary genetic mutations in genes for pigmentation-defined the genetic approach to neural systems development, function and plasticity. The work that followed his lead in a variety of sensory systems, including my own work in the developing olfactory system, proceeds directly from Ray's fundamental contributions.

Distinguished Scientific Contributions: Robert Plomin

The American Psychological Association Awards for Distinguished Scientific Contributions are presented to persons who, in the opinion of the Committee on Scientific Awards, have made distinguished theoretical or empirical contributions to basic research in psychology. Robert Plomin is a recipient of the 2017 award "for leading the transformation of behavioral genetics from an isolated and sometimes vilified scientific outpost to a fully integrated mainstay of scientific psychology." Plomin's award citation, biography, and a selected bibliography are presented here. (PsycINFO Database Record

Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology: Kathryn Paige Harden

The APA Awards for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology recognize psychologists who have demonstrated excellence early in their careers and have held a doctoral degree for no more than 9 years. One of the 2017 award winners is Kathryn Paige Harden, for demonstrating "how to integrate genetic knowledge with the classical clinical and developmental insights into human behavior." Harden's award citation, biography, and a selected bibliography are presented here. (PsycINFO Database Record

A Knockout Experiment: Disciplinary Divides and Experimental Skill in Animal Behaviour Genetics

In the early 1990s, a set of new techniques for manipulating mouse DNA allowed researchers to 'knock out' specific genes and observe the effects of removing them on a live mouse. In animal behaviour genetics, questions about how to deploy these techniques to study the molecular basis of behaviour became quite controversial, with a number of key methodological issues dissecting the interdisciplinary research field along disciplinary lines. This paper examines debates that took place during the 1990s between a predominately North American group of molecular biologists and animal behaviourists around how to design, conduct, and interpret behavioural knockout experiments. Drawing from and extending Harry Collins's work on how research communities negotiate what counts as a 'well-done experiment,' I argue that the positions practitioners took on questions of experimental skill reflected not only the experimental traditions they were trained in but also their differing ontological and epistemological commitments. Different assumptions about the nature of gene action, eg., were tied to different positions in the knockout mouse debates on how to implement experimental controls. I conclude by showing that examining representations of skill in the context of a community's knowledge commitments sheds light on some of the contradictory ways in which contemporary animal behaviour geneticists talk about their own laboratory work as a highly skilled endeavour that also could be mechanised, as easy to perform and yet difficult to perform well.

Lindon J. Eaves, Ph.D., M.A. (Oxon), D.Sc. Theory-model-data

We begin this special issue by providing a glimpse into the career of Dr. Lindon J. Eaves, from the perspectives of a student, postdoc, instructor, assistant to associate and full professor over the last 20 odd years. We focus primarily on Lindon's contributions to methodological issues and research designs to address them, in particular those related to models for extended twin-family designs, for the development of adolescent behavior, for genotype-environment covariation and interaction, and their application to the Virginia 30,000 and the Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development. We then introduce the collection of papers in this special festschrift issue of Behavior Genetics, celebrating Dr. Eaves achievements over the last 40 years.

Biology, ideology, and epistemology: how do we know political attitudes are inherited and why should we care?

Evidence that political attitudes and behavior are in part biologically and even genetically instantiated is much discussed in political science of late. Yet the classic twin design, a primary source of evidence on this matter, has been criticized for being biased toward finding genetic influence. In this article, we employ a new data source to test empirically the alternative, exclusively environmental, explanations for ideological similarities between twins. We find little support for these explanations and argue that even if we treat them as wholly correct, they provide reasons for political science to pay more rather than less attention to the biological basis of attitudes and behaviors. Our analysis suggests that the mainstream socialization paradigm for explaining attitudes and behaviors is not necessarily incorrect but is substantively incomplete.

Correlation not causation: the relationship between personality traits and political ideologies

The assumption in the personality and politics literature is that a person's personality motivates them to develop certain political attitudes later in life. This assumption is founded on the simple correlation between the two constructs and the observation that personality traits are genetically influenced and develop in infancy, whereas political preferences develop later in life. Work in psychology, behavioral genetics, and recently political science, however, has demonstrated that political preferences also develop in childhood and are equally influenced by genetic factors. These findings cast doubt on the assumed causal relationship between personality and politics. Here we test the causal relationship between personality traits and political attitudes using a direction of causation structural model on a genetically informative sample. The results suggest that personality traits do not cause people to develop political attitudes; rather, the correlation between the two is a function of an innate common underlying genetic factor.

Cesare Lombroso: an anthropologist between evolution and degeneration

Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) was a prominent Italian medical doctor and intellectual in the second half of the nineteenth century. He became world famous for his theory that criminality, madness and genius were all sides of the same psychobiological condition: an expression of degeneration, a sort of regression along the phylogenetic scale, and an arrest at an early stage of evolution. Degeneration affected criminals especially, in particular the "born delinquent" whose development had stopped at an early stage, making them the most "atavistic" types of human being. Lombroso also advocated the theory that genius was closely linked with madness. A man of genius was a degenerate, an example of retrograde evolution in whom madness was a form of "biological compensation" for excessive intellectual development. To confirm this theory, in August 1897, Lombroso, while attending the Twelfth International Medical Congress in Moscow, decided to meet the great Russian writer Lev Tolstoy in order to directly verify, in him, his theory of degeneration in the genius. Lombroso's anthropological ideas fuelled a heated debate on the biological determinism of human behaviour.

Twin research, revisionism and metahistory

We understand metahistory as an approach that studies how histories within a particular discipline have been written and focus on insider scientists' reconstructions of twin research. Using the concept of ethical-political affordances we suggest that such histories are based on a management of resources that prove to be beneficial for representing one's own research traditions in a positive light. Instead of discussing information on the context and intellectual life of pioneers of the twin method, which include high-caliber eugenicists and Nazi ideologues, and on how the twin method has been used and abused, insider scientists' accounts present twin research as neutral, objective and void of any kind of political connotations. We show how important leaders of German twin research have been historically managed, and how their contributions have been distorted and omitted. Reasons for historical revisionism by omission and for selectively revised accounts of the past are discussed. Suggestions for writing accounts of the twin method are included and focus on the necessity of self-reflection, considerations regarding one's own ethical-political inclinations, and review of the existing historical literature. In analyzing these connections, we attempt to understand how science, politics and history interact.

Behavioural genetics: Prospects and challenges

In its 2002 report on the ethical context of behavioural genetics the Nuffield Council on Bioethics concentrated on the genetics of variation within the normal range for behavioural dispositions. The report discusses the historical context of this work and looks at some current work in the fields of IQ, antisocial behaviour and sexuality. It then addresses the ethical implications of this work, both for our understanding of ourselves and in relation to possible applications in areas such as assisted reproduction and the law.

Daniel Bovet and his role in the development of psychobiology

One hundred years since his birth, fifty years after his Nobel achievement, Daniel Bovet still emerges as one of the key figures of both pharmacology and psychobiology, the biological and evolutionary roots of behaviour. The life and scientific activities of Daniel Bovet (1907-1992) are closely linked to the 'golden years' of pharmacology, the exceptional development of this science from the end of the 1930s to the 1960s. Later on, from the 1960s to the end of his scientific career, Bovet entered a new field, psychobiology, through the study of the effects of drugs active on the nervous system and their effects on behaviour. This approach led him to explore different aspects of the biology of behaviour, namely the role of individual differences, the genetic determinants of behaviour and their implications on learning and memory. It is therefore evident that the range of his scientific activity has been very broad, a fact difficultly conceivable in years of extreme specialization.

The biography of psychiatric genetics: from early achievements to historical burden, from an anxious society to critical geneticists

When the study of human inheritance became a topic of scientific interest more than 100 years ago, brain function and mental disease immediately attracted the interest of researchers. Psychiatric genetics was dominated from its early beginnings by the question of nature and nurture. Today this problem can be quantitatively approached with odds ratios and attributable risks for certain genotypes. The false doctrine of eugenics and its practical application by the Nazi regime paved the way for the development of a prevailing anxiety in society that psychiatric genetics might lead to stigmatisation or even a revitalization of eugenics. The major challenge for the field, however, stems from the attitudes of fellow geneticists who doubt that genetics can ever contribute to an understanding of brain function and mental disease. Whereas genetically complex traits are being successfully pinned down to the molecular level in other fields of medicine, psychiatric genetics still awaits a major breakthrough. Although mental disorders are harder to tackle than any other complex disease the concepts developed and the methods available today are powerful enough to predict a bright future of the field.

From degeneration to genetic susceptibility, from eugenics to genethics, from Bezugsziffer to LOD score: the history of psychiatric genetics

Reviewing the history of psychiatric genetics is a difficult task, since--in contrast to genetic research into most other disorders--it cannot simply be done by chronologically listing methodological achievements and major findings. Instead, it necessitates a comprehensive assessment of how the aetiological concept of mental disorders has developed since as early as the world of ancient Greece. Furthermore, it has to touch upon the sensitive issue of the eugenic movement that was closely linked to the study of heredity in mental disorders in the first half of the 20th century and, in Nazi Germany, led to the systematic mass murder of psychiatric patients. Finally, reviewing the scientific dimensions, history of psychiatric genetics is at the same time a walk through the history of complex genetics in general. In our review, we try to pay tribute to this complexity. We argue that psychiatric genetics has not only propelled our understanding of mental disorders but has significantly benefited genetic research into other complex disorders through the development of methodologically robust approaches (e.g., systematic phenotype characterisation, methods to control for ascertainment biases, age-correction). Given the recent reasons for new optimism, i.e., the identification of susceptibility genes for psychiatric phenotypes, a continued methodologically sound approach is needed more than ever to guarantee robust results. Finally, psychiatric genetic research should never again be performed in an environment void of ethical standards.

Behavioral genetics: scientific and social acceptance

Human behavioral genetics can be broadly defined as the attempt to characterize and define the genetic or hereditary basis for human behavior. Examination of the history of these scientific enterprises reveals episodes of controversy, and an apparent distinction between scientific and social acceptance of the genetic nature of such complex behaviors. This essay will review the history and methodology of behavioral genetics research, including a more detailed look at case histories involving behavioral genetic research for aggressive behavior and alcoholism. It includes a discussion of the scientific versus social qualities of the acceptance of behavioral genetics research, as well as the development of a general model for scientific acceptance involving the researchers, the scientific literature, the scientific peer group, the mainstream media, and the public at large. From this model follows a discussion of the means and complications by which behavioral genetics research may be accepted by society, and an analysis of how future studies might be conducted.

Contributions to the history of psychology: CXII. Intelligence, behavior genetics, and the Pioneer Fund

Since World War I, political controversies have complicated the long-standing debate on nature versus nurture, especially the question of the source of the observed mean difference in intelligence between white and black groups. The Pioneer Fund, one of the few nonprofit foundations making grants for study and research into human individual and group differences, has been widely and unfairly attacked by those who believe any such research jeopardizes political commitment to legal equality. The four main scholarly areas of research financially supported by Pioneer have been behavioral genetics, cognitive ability, demographic characteristics, and racial variation. This article provides a unique perspective on the history of the Pioneer Fund and some of the controversies that have taken place.

Some history of heredity-vs-environment, genetic inferiority at Harvard (?), and The (incredible) Bell Curve

This article discusses some historical and intellectual roots of American behaviorism in psychology and its anti-heredity, environmentalist bias, as well as the early 'justification' for pure line theory in genetics and some interrelations between the two fields. Next, I discuss the heritability concept, its promotion, its critique and the importance of distinguishing it from, rather than confusing or conflating it with, the heredity concept. Then, briefly I consider some of the history and problems associated with the intelligence concept, as well as the capital importance of biological controls in studies of human heredity. And finally, I document the incredibility of the The Bell Curve and the appalling inadequacy of its reception.

Biopolitics: the newest synthesis?

On first impression, the disciplines of genetics and political science would appear to be unrelated. And yet, commencing more than 30 years ago, the interdisciplinary field known as Biopolitics has now taken hold. This essay traces the central thrust of the biopolitical research agenda. It describes, analyzes, and assesses how political scientists have sought to show connections between our species' genetic constitution and our species' political behavior. Important bridges between the two are the neurophysiology of the human brain and the role of evolutionary theory in charting man's adaptational political profile. The parameters of the emerging biopolitical literature raise profound policy questions, some of which are also characterized.

The social and economic origins of genetic determinism: a case history of the American Eugenics Movement, 1900-1940 and its lessons for today

Eugenics, the attempt to improve the genetic quality of the human species by 'better breeding', developed as a worldwide movement between 1900 and 1940. It was particularly prominent in the United States, Britain and Germany, and in those countries was based on the then-new science of Mendelian genetics. Eugenicists developed research programs to determine the degree in which traits such as Huntington's chorea, blindness, deafness, mental retardation (feeblemindedness), intelligence, alcoholism, schizophrenia, manic depression, rebelliousness, nomadism, prostitution and feeble inhibition were genetically determined. Eugenicists were also active in the political arena, lobbying in the United States for immigration restriction and compulsory sterilization laws for those deemed genetically unfit; in Britain they lobbied for incarceration of genetically unfit and in Germany for sterilization and eventually euthanasia. In all these countries one of the major arguments was that of efficiency: that it was inefficient to allow genetic defects to be multiplied and then have to try and deal with the consequences of state care for the offspring. National socialists called genetically defective individuals 'useless eaters' and argued for sterilization or euthanasia on economic grounds. Similar arguments appeared in the United States and Britain as well. At the present time (1997) much research and publicity is being given to claims about a genetic basis for all the same behaviors (alcoholism, manic depression, etc.), again in an economic context--care for people with such diseases is costing too much. There is an important lesson to learn from the past: genetic arguments are put forward to mask the true--social and economic--causes of human behavioral defects.

Psychological testing, IQ, and evolutionary fitness

Individual group, and ethnic differences in behavior have been an object of long, continuing, and contentious interest, both in the sciences and in popular culture. For well over 2,000 years, psychological traits, particularly those described as 'intelligence', have generally been considered the major factors in fitness in humans. After reviewing contemporary scientific thinking on intelligence, the psychometric methods used for the construction of psychological tests are presented and examined in the context of natural selection and metric characters. There are essential differences between the disciplines of genetics and of psychology such that the concepts of the two are more divergent than might superficially appear to be the case. The analysis leads to the conclusion that standard psychometric methodology cannot yield tests appropriate for measurement of evolutionary fitness characters.

Galton Lecture. Behaviour genetic studies of intelligence, yesterday and today: the long journey from plausibility to proof

When asked whether he would discuss man in theOrigins of the Species, Darwin replied, ‘I think I shall avoid the subject, as so surrounded with prejudices, though I fully admit it is the highest and most interesting problem for the naturalist’. Galton on the other hand replied to the same question, ‘I shall treat man and see what the theory of heredity of variations and the principles of natural selection mean when applied to man’ (Pearson, 1914–30, Vol. II, p. 86).

Legacy of German psychiatric genetics: hindsight is always 20/20

The history of psychiatric genetics is informed by this paper, which serves to review the legacy of German psychiatric genetics and its antecedents during the twentieth century. It also serves as an introduction to two new annotated abstracts of basic research papers on family studies of schizophrenia by Ernst Rüdin in 1916 and by Bruno Schulz in 1932, submitted by Kenneth Kendler and Edith Zerbin-Rüdin, together with another paper by them describing the origin and activities of Rüdin's Munich School of Psychiatric Genetics (1917-1945). Our paper also introduces an invited critical summary of the work of Ernst Rüdin by his biographer Matthias M. Weber, a medical historian working in the Historical Archives of the Clinical Institute of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich. We raise a number of bioethical questions in the context of the uses and misuses made of genetic information in the service of the Nazi programs of eugenics, "euthanasia," and genocide.

Ernst Rüdin, 1874-1952: a German psychiatrist and geneticist

Ernst Rüdin (1874-1952) was one of the major representatives of German psychiatry, genetics, and eugenics in the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Switzerland, he was influenced early on by his brother-in-law Alfred Ploetz, who propagated the ideas of social Darwinism and "racial hygiene" in Germany after 1890. Rüdin began his career in psychiatry at Emil Kraepelin's clinic in Munich, where he developed the concept of "empirical genetic prognosis" of mental disorders. He published his first results on the genetics of schizophrenia in 1916. From 1917-1945 Rüdin was director of the Genealogical-Demographic Department at the German Institute for Psychiatric Research, which Kraepelin had founded. After a short interruption from 1925-1928, Rüdin returned to Munich and enlarged the department. After 1933 the National Socialist government and party endorsed Rüdin's work by supplying financial and manpower support. Nazi health policy required a scientific basis to justify its actions, and Rüdin's ideas corresponded partially with this kind of thinking. In 1934 he prepared the official commentary on the "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring." The connections of Rüdin's department to National Socialism can be understood as one of the main reasons for the critical attitude towards psychiatric genetics in Germany after 1945.

Ernst Rüdin (1874-1952) and his genealogic-demographic department in Munich (1917-1986): an introduction to their family studies of schizophrenia

This historical review introduces a series of papers abstracting, reanalyzing and commenting upon family studies of schizophrenia conducted by Ernst Rüdin and his geneologic-demographic department in Munich. These studies, which pioneered many of the methods still critical to psychiatric genetics, are little known in the anglophonic world. Starting with a study of schizophrenia in siblings, members of the Rüdin school expanded to study a wide range of relationships (including grandchildren and nieces/nephews) and disorders (including affective illness, obsessive-compulsive disorder, epilepsy and personality disorders). They examined many methodologic issues in psychiatric genetics including i) ascertainment correction, ii) anticipation, iii) age correction, iv) assortative mating, v) reduced fertility, vi) spectrum disorders, and vii) familial transmission of age at onset. After the rise of Hitler in Germany, Rüdin and his institute became involved in the eugenic policies of the Nazis, raising important questions about possible political abuse of scientific findings in general and those from the field of psychiatric genetics in particular.