Genetics and Sociology

For close to a century, the social and biological sciences have treated the role of biology and genetics in the explanation of human behavior in different ways; while the social sciences have tended to privilege "nurture" as the cause for variations, biological sciences have leaned toward foregrounding "nature." Increasingly, scholars in both fields are viewing the roles of genetics and environment as complementary, a perspective that is also contributing to the breakdown of disciplinary barriers. Contemporary sociologists, for example, often take into account the potential role of genes in analyses of social behavior. This article describes the history of interactions of the disciplines of sociology and genetics and reviews the development of intellectual discourse of the relative roles of genes and environment, highlighting recent contributions by contemporary sociologists.