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On human self-domestication, psychiatry, and eugenics

Overview of attention for article published in Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, October 2007
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#26 of 234)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (80th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
2 news outlets
twitter
14 X users
wikipedia
10 Wikipedia pages
googleplus
1 Google+ user
reddit
1 Redditor

Citations

dimensions_citation
46 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
121 Mendeley
citeulike
1 CiteULike
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Title
On human self-domestication, psychiatry, and eugenics
Published in
Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, October 2007
DOI 10.1186/1747-5341-2-21
Pubmed ID
Authors

Martin Brüne

Abstract

The hypothesis that anatomically modern homo sapiens could have undergone changes akin to those observed in domesticated animals has been contemplated in the biological sciences for at least 150 years. The idea had already plagued philosophers such as Rousseau, who considered the civilization of man as going against human nature, and eventually "sparked over" to the medical sciences in the late 19th and early 20th century. At that time, human "self-domestication" appealed to psychiatry, because it served as a causal explanation for the alleged degeneration of the "erbgut" (genetic material) of entire populations and the presumed increase of mental disorders. Consequently, Social Darwinists emphasised preventing procreation by people of "lower genetic value" and positively selecting favourable traits in others. Both tendencies culminated in euthanasia and breeding programs ("Lebensborn") during the Nazi regime in Germany. Whether or not domestication actually plays a role in some anatomical changes since the late Pleistocene period is, from a biological standpoint, contentious, and the currently resurrected debate depends, in part, on the definitional criteria applied. However, the example of human self-domestication may illustrate that scientific ideas, especially when dealing with human biology, are prone to misuse, particularly if "is" is confused with "ought", i.e., if moral principles are deduced from biological facts. Although such naturalistic fallacies appear to be banned, modern genetics may, at least in theory, pose similar ethical problems to medicine, including psychiatry. In times during which studies into the genetics of psychiatric disorders are scientifically more valued than studies into environmental causation of disorders (which is currently the case), the prospects of genetic therapy may be tempting to alter the human genome in patients, probably at costs that no-one can foresee. In the case of "self-domestication", it is proposed that human characteristics resembling domesticated traits in animals should be labelled "domestication-like", or better, objectively described as genuine adaptations to sedentism.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 14 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 121 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Canada 2 2%
Chile 1 <1%
United States 1 <1%
Brazil 1 <1%
Unknown 116 96%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 21 17%
Researcher 18 15%
Student > Ph. D. Student 15 12%
Student > Master 12 10%
Other 10 8%
Other 26 21%
Unknown 19 16%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 26 21%
Psychology 16 13%
Social Sciences 13 11%
Medicine and Dentistry 12 10%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 6 5%
Other 27 22%
Unknown 21 17%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 33. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 October 2023.
All research outputs
#1,217,646
of 25,374,917 outputs
Outputs from Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine
#26
of 234 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#2,182
of 84,656 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine
#1
of 5 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,374,917 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 234 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.1. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 84,656 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 5 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them