Biological Determinism And Why Sociologist Have Mounted Such A Powerful Attack

Sample answer:Sociology is the study of human society and its components, including sports, religion, music, and medicine. In addition, it examines populations of people across time and geographic distances. History focuses on the uniqueness of past events as opposed to the sociological focus on finding commonalities. Psychology focuses on individuals to determine why they do the things they do, whereas sociology is more concerned with the larger picture of group influences and interactions.

One of the oldest debates in the history of Psychology is about Nature versus Nurture. Today, we know that both play a significant role in human’s life. Some people believe that it is genes which affects our way of life and some people believes that it is none other but our environment that greatly influences our lifestyle and some believe that both has tremendous impact on one’s way of life. Indeed in certain cases both our nature (our genes) and our environment roughly play an equal role in human life.

Sociologists develop theories to explain and analyze society at different levels and from different perspectives. Sociologists study everything from the micro level of analysis of small social patterns to the “big picture” which is the macro level of analysis of large social patterns.

In the modern world, mankind is surrounding by a plethora of unique animals, plants, and other organism that have a certain natural design all their own. For instance, every organism appears to be best suited in their natural environment, as they are usually able thrive under unique conditions that may not optimal for every organism. Thus, it would appear as though divine intervention was necessary for this perfect design and placement of an organism into their environment. Consequently, this was the ideology for many centuries until Charles Darwin explained how these “illusions” fit into his theory of natural selection. Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection stated that the process by which forms of life having traits that better enable them to adapt to specific environmental pressures, such as predators, changes in climate, or competition for food or mates, will tend to survive and reproduce in greater numbers than others of their kind, thus ensuring the perpetuation of those favorable traits in succeeding generations (Cite). Although it is widely accepted that many of human’s physical traits are inherited from their parents, the notion that the mind has evolved and is designed to function is certain ways is still controversial (Cite). With that being said, the majority of theories that illustrate how the mind develops are still being debated. Moreover, the

In contrast, sociologists focus their analysis on groupings of people organized in social categories such as family, race, religion, and economic class. While sociologists aim to study larger social processes like historical and political changes or how larger social structures like race and class.

The deterministic view has its strengths and weaknesses and some of the popular explanations of human behavior that exemplify the determinist view are human nature, the environment, psychological forces and social dynamics. The human nature is based on the view that our actions are a direct consequence from our inborn nature and whether we do good or evil in life is beyond our control and we cannot alter our fundamental character. The environment explains that behaviors are direct products of the

Free will, which also encapsulates environmentalism, says that behavior is not determined by genes and can be effected by environmental factors and therefore “assumes that we are free to choose our behavior” (simplypsychology.org). In the modern world, the free will and determinism debate has been somewhat reconciled since it has been found that both genes and the environment play a role in human behavior, allowing us to have some choice of who we are based on the environments that we choose to be in. It is now known that it is our genes which interact with the environment that makes us who we are, not the genes themselves (Jacobson, APA).

Humans are the complicated life that might be hard to understand deeply. The origin of humans came from nothing. According to the civilization, it was created by humans, and we all have tried to develop civilization for many years. The sociologist believed that all humans have culture, so this means we have the pattern in the way of life that have been created, adapted and changed for the happiness in the community. Some culture can make the network widely, especially American society. It was influenced by the Hippies in the mid-sixties. Hippies were a group of people who wanted to escape from the common society. They believed the society was made for perfection. The overwhelming of money and the War effect started to control the way of life.

The job of sociologists is to uncover the social laws that govern human behaviour. When they collect information about the social world, they usually subscribe to a scientific model known as the hypothetico-deductive approach. This is the model that natural science employs in, for example, laboratory experiments.

Biological determinism is arguably the most problematic of these theories. It focuses mostly on physical traits that can be used to identify criminals. One of the biggest theorists behind this idea is that of Cesare Lombroso, who founded the Italian School which is according to Adler, Mueller, and Laufer, “... a new orientation, the Italian, or positivist, school of criminology, which seeks explanations for criminal behavior through scientific experimentation and research.” (68). Lombroso believed completely in what he called atavistic stigmata which are “...physical features of creatures at an earlier stage of development, before they became fully human,” (Adler. Mueller, and Laufer 68). He believe that these characteristics were identifiers for criminals, following the logic that the more of these traits a person had the unevolved they were and therefore they were more savage and would commit criminal acts.

When we begin talking about the deterministic factors in psychological, our text gives a good explanation of what that means. It is very similar to that of biological counterpart, it goes on to explain that the choices and decisions made are predetermined based upon our psychological makeup; the choices are for the most part out of our control. The way that we are made up and the individual tendencies that we all have are unique to each and every one of us, it defines who we are and are considered our personality. These are the collects of traits; pattern of ways of thinking, feeling and the way that we behave that

Biological determinism as stated by Gould, states “that shared behavioral norms, and the social and economic differences between human groups-primarily races, classes, and sexes-arise from inherited, inborn distinctions and that society, in this sense, is an accurate reflection of biology” (Gould, p.52). He explains this idea further through his explanation of how biological determinism can be measured or assigned based on the craniometry, which is the size of the skull, for at the time it was believed that the larger the skull, the more intelligent that individual was. This explanation became one of the earliest works connected to scientific racism. Gould, believed that during this time many scientists used their own prejudices, and bias’s when concluding their research, such as the work of French anthropologist, Paul Broca, who stated that “the small brains of women” concluded that men were to be regarded as more intelligent, as well as, above women, however, although women did prove this prejudice to be wrong with “their talents and their diplomas”, they were still “opposed by numbers” (Gould, p. 58). “Biological determinism is, in its essence, a theory of limits” for it states that people who are at the bottom are basically biologically inferior, which is reflected in their social status (Gould, p. 60). Both Darwin and Mendel contributed to biological determinism and scientific racism, is that both opened the doors to new anthropological scientific

Sociology and psychology is the study of the mind and the environment around us which makes us who we are. These theories assist us to understand behaviour from individual and societal levels.

Sociology is the study of the behavior of people and groups within society. This helps out how society works and thinks, If people understand how society thinks we can improve it. With this in mind, you can apply sociology theories and ideas to any scenario of daily life dealing with person to person interaction or even to an individual in regards to the society.

In the environment, determinism is defined by their environment and are conditioned to be the people they are. With this explanation, it depends on the life experiences an individual encounter that affects their behaviors. With the psychological development explanation, people are governed by psychological forces, many of them unconscious, that cause them to think, feel, and act in certain ways. With this explanation, the actions that humans perform are the result of psychological impulses that have been formed by people’s earliest relationships and experiences. With the social dynamics explanation, people are social creatures and are influenced by the people around them.