hereditarian

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he·red·i·tar·i·an·ism

(hə-rĕd′ĭ-târ′ē-ə-nĭz′əm)

The doctrine or school that regards heredity as more important than environmental influences in determining intelligence and behavior.

he·red′i·tar′i·an (hə-rĕd′ĭ-târ′ē-ən) adj. & n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

hereditarian

(hɪˌrɛdɪˈtɛərɪən) ,

hereditarianist

hereditist

(Biology) a person who believes in the doctrine of hereditarianism

adj

(Biology) of or relating to the doctrine of hereditarianism

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

he•red•i•tar•i•an

(həˌrɛd ɪˈtɛər i ən)

n.

1. a person who believes that differences between individuals or groups are predominantly determined by genetic factors.

adj.

2. characteristic of or based on such belief.

[1880–85]

References in periodicals archive ?

Sociogenomics is the latest chapter in a tradition of hereditarian social science dating back more than 150 years.

OPENING A DOOR TO EUGENICS: New ways of using your genetic data could bolster scientific racism and encourage discrimination

In the long term, eugenics would give way to the confluence of changing science and rising social activism--modern genetics and the civil rights movement would quash, but not eradicate the hereditarian thinking that sought to parse humanity into the curable fit and the disabled defective.

FRONTLINES: POLICING AT THE NEXUS OF RACE AND MENTAL HEALTH

However, Christine Ferguson's point that "the intensely hereditarian aspects of 'The Critic as Artist' remain neglected" draws attention to an aspect of the essay which today's readers will inevitably find ideologically problematic: that is, Wilde's deployment of a quasi-Eugenicist discourse (65).

Rereading Oscar Wilde's intentions for "The Importance of Doing Nothing"

In several countries, England, for example, and Italy as well as in Poland, there were debates between hereditarian, individualistic positions and more social problem and poverty-focused ones.

Addiction in Europe, 1860s-1960s: concepts and responses in Italy, Poland, Austria, and the United Kingdom

But at the time of The Scarlet Letter's composition, the departure of fathers from the home to the public sphere coincided with an emerging hereditarian theory that posited the mother's far greater responsibility.

"Then, all was spoken!" What "The Custom-House" and The Scarlet Letter Disclose

This positivist criminology incorporated hereditarian and biological explanations for crime (borrowing from Italian criminologists) and environmental explanations (borrowing from French criminologists).

Garzona nationalism: the confluence of gender, sexuality, and citizenship in the Cuban Republic

These early 'hereditarian' theories followed the belief also propagated by the 'polygenist thesis' that racial differences had existed from the beginning of humanity.

Deconstructing pseudo-scientific anthropology: Antenor Firmin and the reconceptualization of African humanity

(14) American natural scientists in the 1890s "imposed a radically hereditarian interpretation upon the new experimental discoveries," and American social scientists drew from evolutionary science intriguing possibilities for social control (Cravens xviii).

Subjectivity and the possibility of change in the novels of Marilynne Robinson

Eugenicists of all political backgrounds identified themselves as hereditarian. (62) As eugenics became more widespread, the role of the environment was incorporated, and social welfare workers looked for environmental explanations for impoverished families.

Interwar eugenics in Britain: Part 1

Victorian openness arose, in large measure, from a new hope of improvement, and against a backdrop less colored by hereditarian beliefs than has often been assumed.

Children who disappeared in Britain

Bowler, The Mendelian Revolution: The Emergence Of Hereditarian Concepts in Modern Science and Society (London: The Athlone Press, 2001), 130-7.