Richard C. Lewontin, eminent geneticist with a sharp pen, has died | Hacker News Reader

Richard C. Lewontin, eminent geneticist with a sharp pen, has died

nytimes.com

38 pointsHooke14 comments

>Dr. Lewontin and his co-workers determined that the great bulk of human genetic variability, roughly 85 percent, could be found within a population of, say, Asians or Africans, while just 15 percent of the diversity might distinguish Asians from Africans from Caucasians.

>He was no fan of the massive federal Human Genome Project, which set out to map the entire sequence of human DNA

As a layman, I am baffled by how one would asses the genetic difference between two individuals without a full sequence of each of their respective DNA. The first quotation above has the disclaimer, "Using what would now count as relatively crude genetic markers like blood groups, but pulling from a significant global database", but does this mean that what they "determined" was not actually demonstrated?

It's statistical. They could genotype a subset of genetic markers. As long as the N of their sample is high enough (tens, hundreds), this would give sufficient precision to make a statement about in- vs out- group variability. These estimates have held up.

>They could genotype a subset of genetic markers. As long as the N of their sample is high enough (tens, hundreds), this would give sufficient precision

Doesn't the sample of markers have to be unbiased as well? How would they have ensured this?

you're starting to unravel many of the long-standing but not well supported claims of human genetics. Even with the human genome it's nontrivial to reliably compare people.

Witherspoon et al. attempt to answer the question, "How often is a pair of individuals from one population genetically more dissimilar than two individuals chosen from two different populations?". The answer depends on the number of polymorphisms used to define that dissimilarity, and the populations being compared. When they analysed three geographically distinct populations (European, African and East Asian) and measured genetic similarity over many thousands of loci, the answer to their question was "never".

I met Dick Lewontin a few times circa age four. Somehow a lobster buoy found by my older brother in Gloucester was placed from the hanging lights above the conference table in his laboratory which eventually became a massive trash sculpture famously known throughout the scientific community in the late 70s until the fire department requested it removed for reasons. I remember being sad when I heard that news as I'm saddened by hearing of his passing now. I know how much he influenced my parents not just as scientists but as people. I've gone through my entire life thinking that there should be sculptures above every conference room table -- that particle board and fluorescent lights unadorned is drab. Now I'm wondering how much my drive to do things for the only reason that they are f&@king cool might have originally started being a toddler in his laboratory.

Sad we lost one of the great original thinkers.

>Sad we lost one of the great original thinkers.

What made him great, and, to boot, original, in your opinion?

Lewontin's reputation will be forever tarnished by his disgraceful treatment of E.O. Wilson, a dispute in which he was viciously unfair and in which Wilson has proved to be correct in every particular.

care to elaborate?

The feud is alluded to in the article. The broad summary is that Wilson had the temerity to devote the final chapter of Sociobiology, a book that pretty much launched the field of evolutionary study of animal behaviour, to humans. Lewontin and Gould - among others - had ideological objections to this, resulting in a vicious personal persecution of Wilson that stretched over decades. This is all very well documented, but to appreciate the sheer unfairness of the way Lewontin prosecuted his vendetta you have to hunt down Wilson's accounts of the affair in books like "Naturalist". It's very hard to come away from it without having your opinion of both Lewontin and Gould soured.

This review of "Naturalist" in the NYTimes gives some flavor of events:

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/s...

The book itself is well worth reading - it's a wonderful scientific autobiography written by, for my money, the best science writer of the last century.

I was vaguely aware of the 'feud', was more curious about your judgment that "Wilson has proved to be correct in every particular" (because I don't think this is true). Is there a reason to believe that the objections by Lewontin and Gould were 'ideological'? Personally I care more about whether the criticisms were valid than what motivated them. Seems to me that Wilson's idea about the genetic origin of social behavior is quite speculative, and naive about the enormous complexity of both genetics and behavior. Wilson also remains a widely celebrated scientist, perhaps more so than Lewontin, so clearly the persecutions didn't amount to much (though I admit that I know little about how L and G treated W in private).

The sociobiology debate was a relatively high-profile and personal debate primarily between Wilson and Lewontin and their supporters. A good brief overview is given by John Nerst in his review of Segerstråle's "Defenders of the Truth: The Sociobiology Debate": https://everythingstudies.com/2021/06/23/rereading-defenders... Lewontin doesn't come out covered in glory.

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