Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Field Analysis and Interdisciplinary Science: Scientific Capital Exchange in Behavior Genetics

  • Published:
Minerva Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper uses Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory to develop tools for analyzing interdisciplinary scientific fields. Interdisciplinary fields are scientific spaces where no single form of scientific capital has a monopoly and therefore multiple forms of scientific capital constitute the structures and stakes of scientific competition. Scientists compete to accumulate and define forms of scientific capital and also to set the rates of exchange between them. The paper illustrates this framework by applying it to the interdisciplinary field of behavior genetics. Most behavior geneticists envision their participation in the field as a means to compete for scientific capital in other fields. However, the scientific capital of behavior genetics has different values for scientists attempting to deploy it in different neighboring fields. These values depend on situations in each field and the ways behavior genetics mediates relationships among them. The pattern of relationships of exchange helps explain the social hierarchy and several features of knowledge production within behavior genetics.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Though see Bourdieu (2004, pp. 62–71).

  2. The “game” metaphor in Bourdieusian analysis emphasizes that actors are embedded in locally structured, relational competitions for advantage rather than the ludic dimensions of sociability as in Mead or Goffman.

  3. The value of the Bourdieusian approach is at least threefold over others, like actor-network theory (Latour 1987), the mangle approach (Pickering 1993), or even social worlds theory (Fujimura and Clarke 1992), that reject the notion of field autonomy and emphasize contingency and hybridity in all scientific practices. First, for Bourdieu scientific autonomy is a virtue, but also a variable to be assessed empirically. The fact that scientific truths are not simply determined by economic or political criteria means that the scientific field has a degree of relative autonomy from the economic and political fields. Similarly, as I show below, the fact that the definition of “good science” in behavior genetics has partial independence from standards in psychology or genetics means that it has a degree of autonomy. Relative autonomy is thus something that must be mapped and analyzed empirically, not just rejected as merely the ideology of scientists. Second, the network, mangle, and interactionist approaches that locate action in associations, the tuning of practice, or the problem of interactive coordination have limited resources for tracing action at a distance. The field approach is deeply concerned with how perturbations in one part of the field impact disconnected actions elsewhere (see Martin 2003). Thus, as we will see, many behavior geneticists’ chances for deploying their scientific capital are affected by the practices and controversies with others with whom they have no direct associations, practices, or interactions. A third, related point is that field analysis draws attention to the crucial ways that practices are affected simultaneously by different forms of recognition. Actor network and mangle theories explicitly discount this while interactionist theory typically considers it only in immediate contexts while neglecting recognition further afield.

  4. I do not attempt to quantify symbolic recognition (as a citation analysis might) or closely investigate how it relates to material resources.

  5. This narrative parallels what psychiatric geneticists have sometimes said about their field, albeit in more optimistic terms (Propping 2005, Rutter 2002).

  6. For example, Kagan (1969) and Wachs (1983) shifted their critical positions to become allies of behavior geneticists (e.g., Kagan 2003 and Wachs and Plomin 1991).

  7. For example, Kaplan (2000, pp. 60–3) suggests that some animal behavior geneticists have interpreted their research in ways that support determinist ideas in human research though alternative interpretations are available.

  8. Also the differences in chances for receiving scientific capital are relative and the stakes are not life and death—animal behavior geneticists can have respectable careers despite these problems.

  9. See, for example, Carey (2003), Hamer and Copeland (1998), Hay (1985), Plomin et al. (2001), Plomin et al. (2003), and Rutter (2006). In Fuller and Thompson (1960) the animal/human relationship is reversed.

  10. In this case attachments within science, not to economic or political contexts.

  11. For example, in behavior genetics, psychologists and psychiatrists often perceive themselves as more cognitively different from each other than their scientific practices suggest, and animal behavior geneticists from many different disciplinary/cognitive backgrounds share similar views and experiences.

References

  • Albert, Mathieu, Suzanne Laberge, and Brian D. Hodges. 2009. Boundary-Work in the Health Research Field. Minerva 47(2): 171–194.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Albert, Mathieu, Suzanne Laberge, Brian D. Hodges, Glenn Regehr, and Lorelei Lingard. 2008. Biomedical scientists’ perception of the social sciences in health research. Social Science & Medicine 66: 2520–2531.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Armstrong, David. 2009. Origins of the Problem of Health-related Behaviours: A Genealogical Study. Social Studies of Science 39: 909–926.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arribas-Ayllon, Michael, Andrew Bartlett, and Katie Featherstond. 2010. Complexity and Accountability: The Witches’ Brew of Psychiatric Genetics. Social Studies of Science 40: 499–524.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Balaban, Evan, Joseph S. Alper, and Yvette L. Kasamon. 1996. Mean Genes and the Biology of Agression: A Critical Review of Recent Animal and Human Research. Journal of Neurogenetics 11: 1–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Balaban, Evan. 2001a. Behavior Genetics: Galen’s Prophecy or Malpighi’s Legacy? In Thinking about Evolution: Historical, Philosophical, and Political Perspectives, eds. Rama S. Singh, Costas B. Kribas, Diane B. Paul, and John Beatty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Balaban, Evan. 2001b. Neurogenetics and Behavior. In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, eds. Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Boltes, 10591–10597. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

  • Baron, M. 1997. Genetic Linkage and Bipolar Mood Affective Disorder: Progress and Pitfalls. Molecular Psychiatry 2: 100–210.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beckwith, Jon. 2001. On the social responsibility of scientists. Annali dell’Istituto Superiore di Sanità 37: 189–194.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bouchard, Thomas J., Jr. 1996. Behaviour Genetic Studies of Intelligence, Yesterday and Today: The Long Journey from Plausibility to Proof. Journal of Biosocial Science 28: 527–555.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, Pierre. 1975. The Specificity of the Scientific Field and the Social Conditions of the Progress of Reason. Social Science Information 14: 19–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. The Peculiar History of Scientific Reason. Sociological Forum 6: 3–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, Pierre. 1998. Practical Logic. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, Pierre. 2004. Science of Science and Reflexivity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carey, Gregory. 2003. Human genetics for the social sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Devlin, Bernie, Stephen E. Feinberg, Daniel P. Resnick, and Kathryn Roeder. 1997. Intelligence, Genes, and Success: Scientists Respond to The Bell Curve. New York: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Frickel, Scott. 2004. Building an interdiscipline: Collective action framing and the rise of genetic toxicology. Social Problems 51: 269–287.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fujimura, Joan H., and Adele Clarke, eds. 1992. The Right tools for the job: at work in twentieth-century life sciences. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuller, John L. 1960. Behavior Genetics. Annual Review of Psychology 11: 41–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuller, John L., and William R. Thompson. 1960. Behavior genetics. Wiley: New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gardner, Howard. 1983. Frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, Walter. 1992. A Vision of the Grail. In The Code of codes: scientific and social issues in the human genome project, eds. Daniel J. Kevles and Leroy E. Hood, 83–97. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

  • Guze, Samuel. 1989. Biological psychiatry: Is there any other kind? Psychological Medicine 19: 315–323.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hackett, Edward, and Diana Rhoten. 2009. The Snowbird Charrette: Integrative Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Environmental Research Design. Minerva 47(4): 407–440.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hamer, Dean H. 2004. The God Gene. New York: Doubleday.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamer, Dean H., Stella Hu, Victoria L. Magnuson, Nan Hu, and Angela M. L. Pattatucci. 1993. A linkage between DNA markers on the X chromosome and male sexual orientation. Science 261: 321–325.

  • Hamer, Dean H., and Peter Copeland. 1994. The Science of Desire. New York: Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamer, Dean H., and Peter Copeland. 1998. Living with Our Genes. New York: Doubleday.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, Judith Rich. 1999. The Nurture Assumption. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hay, David A. 1985. Essentials of Behavior Genetics. Melbourne: Blackwell Scientific.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herrnstein, Richard J., and Charles A. Murray. 1994. The Bell Curve. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirschhorn, Joel N., Kirk Lohmuller, Edward Byrne, and Kurt Hirschhorn. 2002. A comprehensive review of genetic association studies. Genetics in Medicine 4: 45–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holden, Constance. 1994. A Cautionary Genetic Tale: The Sobering Story of D2. Science 264: 1696–1697.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holden, Constance. 2009. Back to the Drawing Board for Psychiatric Genetics. Science 324: 1628.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hubbard, Ruth, and Elijah Wald. 1993. Exploding the Gene Myth. Boston: Beacon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobs, Jerry A., and Scott Frickel. 2009. Interdisciplinarity: A Critical Assessment. Annual Review of Sociology 35: 43–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jensen, Arthur R. 1969. How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement? Harvard Educational Review 39:1–123.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kagan, Jerome. 1969. Inadequate Evidence and Illogical Conclusions. Harvard Educational Review 39: 274–277.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kagan, Jerome. 2003. A Behavioral Science Perspective. In Behavioral Genetics in the Postgenomic Era, eds. R. Plomin, J. C. DeFries, I. W. Craig, and P. McGuffin, xvii–xx. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

  • Kaplan, Jonathan Michael. 2000. The Limits and Lies of Human Genetic Research: Dangers for Social Policy. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kendler, Kenneth S. 1994. Discussion: Genetic Analysis. In Genetic Approaches to Mental Disorders, eds. Elliot S. Gershon and C. Robert Cloninger. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.

  • Kevles, Daniel J. 1985. In the name of eugenics: genetics and the uses of human heredity. New York: Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim, Kyung-Man. 2009. What would a Bourdieuan sociology of scientific truth look like? Social Science Information 48: 57–79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, Julie Thompson. 1996. Crossing boundaries. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koshland, D. 1987. Nature, nurture and behavior. Science 235: 1445.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koshland, D. 1989. Sequences and consequences of the Human Genome. Science 246: 189.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koshland, D. 1990. A rational approach to the irrational. Science 250: 189.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lamont, Michele, Grégoire Mallard, and Joshua Guetzkow. 2006. Beyond Blind Faith: Overcoming the Obstacles to Interdisciplinary Evaluation. Research Evaluation 15: 1–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lamont, Michele. 2009. How Professors Think. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour, Bruno. 1987. Science in action: how to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewontin, Richard C. 1974. The Analysis of Variance and the Analysis of Causes. American Journal of Human Genetics. 26: 400–411.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewontin, Richard C., Steven P. R. Rose, and Leon J. Kamin. 1984. Not in our genes. New York: Pantheon Books.

  • Lynn, Richard, and Tatu Vanhanen. 2002. Eugenics: A Reassessment. Westport, CT: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • McClearn, Gerald E. 1993. Behavioral Genetics: The Last Century and the Next. In Nature, Nurture, and Psychology, eds. Robert Plomin and Gerald. E. McClearn, 27–51. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

  • Mialet, Helene. 2003. Review: The ‘Righteous Wrath’ of Pierre Bourdieu. Social Studies of Science 33: 613–621.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, David S. 2001. The Dependent Gene. New York: W. H. Freeman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelkin, Dorothy, and M. Susan Lindee. 2000. The DNA mystique: the gene as a cultural icon. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Panofsky, Aaron. Forthcoming. Rethinking Scientific Authority: Behavior Genetics and Race Controversies. In Creating Authority, eds. Richard Sennett and Craig Calhoun. New York: New York University Press.

  • Panofsky, Aaron. N.d. The Inside Out Field: Controversy and Knowledge Production in Behavior Genetics. Unpublished manuscript.

  • Pickering, Andrew. 1993. The mangle of practice: agency and emergence in the sociology of science. American Journal of Sociology 99: 559–589.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plomin, Robert, C. John, Gerald E. DeFries, and Michael Rutter McClearn. 2001. Behavioral genetics, 4th ed. New York: Worth Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plomin, Robert, John. C. DeFries, Ian W. Craig, and Peter McGuffin, eds. 2003. Behavioral Genetics in the Postgenomic Era. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Assn.

  • Propping, Peter. 2005. The biography of psychiatric genetics: From early achievements to historical burden, from an anxious society to critical geneticists. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics 136B: 2–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg. 1997. Toward a History of Epistemic Things. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richardson, K., and S.H. Norgate. 2006. A Critical Analysis of IQ Studies of Adopted Children. Human Development 49: 319–335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Risch, Neil J., and David Botstein. 1996. A Manic Depressive History. Nature Genetics 12: 351–353.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rowe, David C. 1994. The Limits of Family Influence. New York: Guilford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rushton, J. Philippe. 1994. Race, Evolution, and Behavior. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction.

  • Rutter, Michael. 2002. Nature, Nurture, and Development: From Evangelism Through Science Toward Policy and Practice. Child Development 73: 1–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rutter, Michael. 2006. Genes and Behavior. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rutter, Michael, and Robert Plomin. 1997. Opportunities for psychiatry from genetic findings. British Journal of Psychiatry 171: 209–219.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scarr, Sandra. 1981. Race, Social Class and Individual Differences in IQ. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scarr, Sandra. 1992. Developmental Theories for the 1990s: Development and Individual Differences. Child Development 63: 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shorter, Edward. 1997. A History of Psychiatry. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sternberg, Robert J. 1985. Beyond IQ: A Triarchic Theory of Human Intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turkheimer, Eric. 2000. Three Laws of Behavioral Genetics and What They Mean. Current Directions in Psychological Science 9: 160–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turkheimer, Eric. 2006. “Mobiles: A Gloomy View of the Future of Research into Complex Human Traits.” In Wrestling with Behavioral Genetics, eds. E. Parens, A. Chapman, and N. Press, 165–178. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

  • Wachs, Theodore D. 1983. The use and abuse of environment in behavior-genetic research. Child Development 54: 396–407.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wachs, Theodore D., and Robert Plomin, eds. 1991. Conceptualization and Measurement of Organism-Environment Interaction. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitney, Glayde. 1995. Presidential Address to the Behavior Genetics Association: Twenty-Five Years of Behavior Genetics. Mankind Quarterly 35: 327–342.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Mathieu Albert, Daniel Kleinman, and two reviewers whose suggestions improved this paper. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (SES 0328563).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. UCLA Department of Public Policy and Center for Society and Genetics, Box 957221, 1323 Rolfe Hall, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-7221, USA

    Aaron L. Panofsky

Authors
  1. Aaron L. Panofsky
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aaron L. Panofsky.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Panofsky, A.L. Field Analysis and Interdisciplinary Science: Scientific Capital Exchange in Behavior Genetics. Minerva 49, 295–316 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-011-9175-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-011-9175-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation