Diversity and its causes: Lewontin on racism, biological determinism and the adaptationist programme

Lewontin's 1972 paper (RC Lewontin, 1972 The apportionment of human diversity, in Evolutionary biology, vol. 6 (eds T Dobzhansky, MK Hecht, WC Steere), pp. 381–398) can be viewed as one foray in his battle against biological determinism. Our paper shows where Lewontin, The apportionment of human diversity, fits in the debate over human classification that it stimulated. We outline three assumptions inherent in the biological deterministic view of human phenotypic diversity and show how the 1972 paper, as well as Lewontin's papers in 1970 and 1974 on the problems with the heritability statistic and his 1979 criticism of naive pan-selectionism, invalidate these assumptions. These papers were crucial components of his campaign against biological determinism and the racism with which it was associated. In the current climate of widespread racism and the rise of sociogenomics, it is important to revisit Lewontin's writings and to disseminate the messages they contain. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Celebrating 50 years since Lewontin's apportionment of human diversity’.