"Biology and society, from bio-sociology to socio-biology, and back" Conference by André Pichot More about >

The social sciences often have great difficulty responding credibly to statements made by some biologists on the supposed progress of their discipline (usually genetic) and their impact on society. Besides the intimidating tone of these statements, their scientific pretensions, a tendency to play with reality and evidence in their formulation, the difficulty is due to an extraordinary jumble of science and ideology in one camp like in the other, and a common history where social and biological disciplines have often interfered. In his alleged applications to society, biology does only return its own discourse to social sciences, which makes it difficult for them to criticize it.

André Pichot is researcher at the CNRS in History and Philosophy of Science (UMR 7117 CNRS-University of Nancy II). He is author of:

• Histoire de la notion de vie (Gallimard, 1993, 1995, 2004, 2008)
• La société pure, de Darwin à Hitler (Flammarion, 2000, 2001, 2009)
• Aux origines des théories raciales, de la Bible à Darwin (Flammarion, 2008)