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Blinded by ScienceThe Social Implications of Epigenetics and Neuroscience$
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Blinded by Science: The Social Implications of Epigenetics and Neuroscience

David Wastell and Susan White

Print publication date: 2017

Print ISBN-13: 9781447322337

Published to Policy Press Scholarship Online: September 2017

DOI: 10.1332/policypress/9781447322337.001.0001

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PRINTED FROM POLICY PRESS SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.policypress.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Policy Press, 2021. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in PPSO for personal use.date: 30 November 2021

Biology and the drive for human improvement

Biology and the drive for human improvement

Chapter:
(p.3) One Biology and the drive for human improvement
Source:
Blinded by Science
Author(s):

David Wastell

Sue White

Publisher:
Policy Press
DOI:10.1332/policypress/9781447322337.003.0001

This chapter reviews the historical origins of the project of human improvement, from the Enlightenment onward, coming to the fore especially during the Victorian era. It traces the ascendancy of developmental psychology and ‘infant determinism’ which has always been a key part of the project of human improvement. Attachment theory has played an important part in this this; we draw attention to the contradictions and inconsistencies in this influential body of thought.

Keywords:   social reform, utopia, eugenics, developmental psychology, attachment theory

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