El futuro desafío biológico a la teoría y a la práctica social

Resumen

The future biological challenge to social theory and practice

Biology very much remains ’the other’ of sociology. While this position is historically explicable, it is quickly becoming untenable. However, this does not mean that sociologists should turn into biologists. A sociology of biological knowledge readily shows that the two disciplines share more features than practitioners of either of them probably realize. Nevertheless, some recent attempts to bring biology and sociology closer together leave much to be desired, as they shortchange sociology’s contribution. My own strategy for interdisciplinary rapprochement is twofold. First, insight can be gained by treating sociology and biology as fields that historically have come to be mutually alienated, despite a significant overlap in cognitive interests. Second, perhaps the most fruitful focus for future interaction between sociology and biology is over matters in which innovative conceptions of the human condition have forced a reconceptualization of politics. These challenges arise in a neo-liberal ideological environment, which raises its own set of concerns, as epitomized by the phenomenon of ’bioprospecting’. I end by urging social theorists to resist the recent call to a ’Darwinian Left’ and look instead toward a ’critical sense of sympathy’ as the new basis for the social bond.

Key words: Sociology, biology, bioprospecting, Darwinian left, neo-liberalism, sympathy, disabilities, sociobiology, biotechnology, feminism.