The Heredity Hoax: Challenging Flawed Genetic Theories of Human Development

This innovative and thought-provoking book integrates both new, authored material and reprints of existing literature that, together, provide a compelling narrative that reveals the fatally flawed science associated with genetic reductionist accounts of human behavior and development.

Through an interdisciplinary lens, it illuminates the dynamic nature of human development, empowering readers to question established notions, and embrace the complexity of our potential. Across the book, the work of top-tier scientists, from developmental, comparative, educational, and biological science illuminates theory and research converging on the conclusion that the multiple egregiously flawed work of genetic reductionists should be expunged from research pertinent to human development. The book challenges the prevailing reductionist narratives and their application to social policies, programs, and uses in media. Theoretically based and empirically rigorous, this multidisciplinary approach to human development will shine a light on the inequities in individuals or groups that suggest that specific genes do not enable them to succeed in life.

The Heredity Hoax invites graduate programs and advanced undergraduate courses on human development, human potential, epigenetics, and more to delve into the intricate interplay between genes, environment, and personal growth. This will also serve as an unimpeachable source of evidence for researchers, educators, and social policymakers.

Richard M. Lerner is the Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science and the Director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development in the Eliot Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, at Tufts University.

Gary Greenberg, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Wichita State University, Co-founder (with Ethel Tobach) of the International Society for Comparative Psychology, has been a comparative psychologist for his entire career.