Behaving

What's Genetic, What's Not, and Why Should We Care?

Kenneth F. Schaffner

Contains a theory of models in biology and medicine, including psychiatry, which sees both basic mechanisms in biology and also mental disorders as a family of over-lapping prototypical multilevel causal models
The first in-depth philosophical analysis of the implications of the development of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on both common traits of interest and patterns of traits constituting psychiatric disorders
Includes quotations from more than a dozen prominent behavioral and psychiatric geneticists whom the author has interviewed in recent years

Behaving

What's Genetic, What's Not, and Why Should We Care?

Kenneth F. Schaffner

Description

Behaving presents an overview of the recent history and methodology of behavioral genetics and psychiatric genetics, informed by a philosophical perspective. Kenneth F. Schaffner addresses a wide range of issues, including genetic reductionism and determinism, "free will," and quantitative and molecular genetics. The latter covers newer genome-wide association studies (GWAS) that have produced a paradigm shift in the subject, and generated the problem of "missing heritability." Schaffner also presents cases involving pro and con arguments for genetic testing for IQ and for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Schaffner examines the nature-nurture controversy and Developmental Systems Theory using C. elegans or "worm" studies as a test case, concluding that genes are special and provide powerful tools, including "deep homology," for investigating behavior. He offers a novel account of biological knowledge emphasizing the importance of models, mechanisms, pathways, and networks, which clarifies how partial reductions provide explanations of traits and disorders.

The book also includes examinations of personality genetics and of schizophrenia and its etiology, alongside interviews with prominent researchers in the area, and discusses debates about psychosis that led to changes in the DSM-5 in 2013.

Schaffner concludes by discussing additional philosophical implications of the genetic analyses in the book, some major worries about "free will," and arguments pro and con about why genes and DNA are so special. Though genes are special, newer perspectives presented in this book will be needed for progress in behavioral genetics- perspectives that situate genes in complex multilevel prototypic pathways and networks. With a mix of optimism and pessimism about the state of the field and the subject, Schaffner's book will be of interest to scholars in the history and philosophy of science, medicine, and psychiatry.

Behaving

What's Genetic, What's Not, and Why Should We Care?

Kenneth F. Schaffner

List of Figures and Tables
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction

1. Behaving: Its Nature and Nurture (Part 1)
2. Behaving: Its Nature and Nurture (Part 2)
3. Genes, Behavior, and the Developmentalist Challenge: One Process, Indivisible?
4. What's a Worm Got to Do with It? - Model Organisms and Deep Homology
5. Reduction: The Cheshire Cat Problem and a Return to Roots
6. Human Behavioral Genetics: Personality Studies, Depression, Gene-Environment Interplay, and the Revolutionary Results of GWAS
7. Schizophrenia Genetics: Experimental and Theoretical Approaches
8. What's Genetic, What's Not, and Why Should We Care?
9. Summary and Conclusion

Index

Behaving

What's Genetic, What's Not, and Why Should We Care?

Kenneth F. Schaffner

Author Information

Kenneth F. Schaffner (Ph.D., Columbia, 1967; M.D., University of Pittsburgh, 1986) is Distinguished University Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. His research on the foundations and methodology of behavioral and psychiatric genetics has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Behaving

What's Genetic, What's Not, and Why Should We Care?

Kenneth F. Schaffner

Reviews and Awards

"...is human behavior genetically determined? Few people have been thinking about that question for as long, or with as much devotion to the scientific facts and philosophical subtleties, as the philosopher of science, Kenneth Schaffner. In his magisterial, wise, and succinct new book, Behaving, he disentangles its two separate but related components...Schaffner provides a balanced account while never losing sight of what has been and will be achieved by using genetics to explain medical, behavioral, and psychiatric traits--especially if integrated with insights at myriad other levels of analysis, from the genetic and neuronal to the psychological and social." -- Erik Parens for Quillette.com

"a thorough, in-depth discussion of contemporary scientific inquiry into behavior and the philosophical implications of recent discoveries in the field." -- Metapsychology Online Reviews

"The philosophical considerations and history of ideas at the heart of this book offer valuable and illuminating context for readers of contemporary genetic studies of behavioral phenotypes. This is a thoughtful, multifaceted, and nuanced work. In sum, Schaffner offers a brilliantly written and useful volume for learning and teaching about behavior genetics, its assumptions, methods, and findings." -- PsycCRITIQUES