Not In Our Genes, Steven Rose, R.C. Lewontin, Leon J. Kamin. Penguin, Harmondsworth, Middlesex (1984), xi, +322. Price £3·95

Rose, Lewontin & Kamin have conducted a thorough sacred cow hunt through the literature of psychology which deals with genetic causation of human behaviour. They have done so in the name of Marxism: ' . . . we believe that it is possible to create a better society than the one we live in at present; that inequalities of wealth, power and status are not "natural" but socially imposed obstructions to the building of a society in which the creative potential of all its citizens are employed for the benefit of all'. (page 9). This rhetoric might be convincing if two of the authors were not associated with particular universities that are widely recognized as bastions of upper class privilege. Large sections of this book are devoted to psychological research concerning the genetics of IQ and schizophrenia. Sir Cyril Burt comes in for a well-deserved drubbing and other twin studies purporting to have supported Burt's non-data are dissected, exposing critical flaws. It is to be hoped that textbooks of biology and psychology will pay some attention to this critique of often-cited studies. An inclusive criticism of all studies in which monozygotic twins were supposedly separated is that the data can only show that differences are not of genetic origin. Causation of similari t ies~n IQ or anything e l s e ~ a n n o t be determined from studies of separated twins. The authors consistently warn against the dangers of reification. IQ and schizophrenia have in common that they are not labels of specific behaviours, but rather of unbounded and amorphous classes of behaviour. The contents of these classes vary to suit different observers. As a result, measurement of these supposed characteristics is particularly subject to bias when research designs are not double blind. There can be little doubt that this potential for bias has not worked to favour lower socio-economic classes. Biologically deterministic arguments are carefully outlined while being pinned to the target. According to the book, biodeterminists assert that inequalities in society are a result of differences in intrinsic merit, that failures in character are coded in genes and will be passed on accordingly, and that social status hierarchies are the end result. It is not made sufficiently clear that while some sociobiology may be used by those wishing to make these assertions, most sociobiologists steer well clear of these conclusions. It appears to me that two types of sociobiology have emerged in the past two decades. One sort, often identified as behavioural ecology, involves the circumspect observing, experimenting and theorizing of animal behaviourists in the field and the laboratory. The other sort uses analogy to make untestable assertions about the supposed single gene causes of vague classes of behaviour such as xenophobia, altruism and selfishness. This second sociobiology, typified by books such as E.O. Wilson's On Human Nature, is transparent and naive in its biological misunderstandings and Rose, Lewontin & Kamin give a particularly clear summary of the arguments against it.