Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun use of biological principles in explaining human behavior, especially social behavior.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The use or emphasis of biological principles or methods in explaining human, especially social, behavior.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun use of biological principles in explaining human especially social behavior

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Circa 1920.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word biologism.

Examples

  • They are, I believe, rooted in the nature of things, but not properly accounted for by the "biologism" of some versions of natural law.

    A Thinking Reed Lee 2010

  • Tallis spoke with withering disdain for the overreaching claims of reductive "biologism" and "Darwinitis," which "confuse our biological roots with our cultural leaves."

    Independent Weekly: All Recent Stories 2008

  • And, in the latest issue of Applied Linguistics (31: 2, May 2010) she revisits the topic to critique what she calls “the new biologism”.

    G is for Gender « An A-Z of ELT 2010

  • The world of academe is currently in the grip of a strange and worrying ¬epidemic of biologism, which has also captured the popular imagination.

    Rethinking Thinking Raymond Tallis 2011

  • Both authors look outside the conceptual frameworks upon which biologism depends.

    Rethinking Thinking Raymond Tallis 2011

  • And, in the latest issue of Applied Linguistics (31: 2, May 2010) she revisits the topic to critique what she calls “the new biologism”.

    May « 2010 « An A-Z of ELT 2010

  • Thus it is notable when two books written by neuro-biologists of the greatest distinction are nonetheless critical of the simplifications—both scientific and philosophical—of biologism.

    Rethinking Thinking Raymond Tallis 2011

  • Ruddick (1984), for example, has laboured to dislodge her concept of 'maternal thinking' from nineteenth-century biologism and to construct a new theory of feminist pacifism based on the concept of 'preservative love' (in Pierson, 1987: 205).

    Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity 2008

  • Reduction to physiologism or biologism don't seem feasible after Behe's or Wolfram's IC arguments.

    Confirmation Bias and ID 2006

  • This facile biologism leads the critics to propose some distasteful remedies to allow these testosterone-juiced boys to express themselves.

    Michael Kimmel on “The Boy Crisis” and Anti-Male Ideology 2006

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.