Biology without biologism: social theory in a postgenomic age

The epistemology of the life sciences has significantly changed over the last two decades but
many of these changes seem to remain unnoticed amongst sociologists: both the majority who
reject biology and the few minorities who want to biologize social theory seem to share a
common (biologistic) understanding of ‘the biological’ that appears increasingly out of date with
recent advances in the biosciences. In the first part of this article I offer an overview of some
contemporary importations of biological and neurobiological knowledge into the sociological field.
In the second section I contrast this image of biological knowledge circulating in the social sciences
with the more pluralist ways in which biology is theorized in many sectors of the life sciences. The
‘postgenomic’ view of biology emerging from this second section represents a challenge for the
monolithic view of biology present amongst social theorists and a new opportunity of dialogue for
social theorists interested in non-positivist ways of borrowing from the life sciences.