hereditarian

[ huh-red-i-tair-ee-uhn ]

noun

1. a person who believes that differences between individuals or groups, including moral and intellectual attributes, are predominantly determined by genetic factors ( environmentalist ).

adjective

1. characteristic of or based on such belief:

   hereditarian theories.

Other Words From

• he·redi·tari·an·ism noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of hereditarian¹

1880–85; heredit(y) or heredit(ary) + -arian

Example Sentences

He later noted in “Naturalist,” his 1994 autobiography, that his was “an exceptionally strong hereditarian position for the 1970s.”

From Washington Post

Blueprint does depart from much prior hereditarian social science in not explicitly mentioning race — the hot-button issue of many earlier works.

From Nature

Jensen’s arguments and much of his ‘data’ were old, part of a dark tradition of hereditarian social science that would subsequently emerge in books such as The Bell Curve.

From Nature

Plomin deploys a standard feint in hereditarian psychology, insisting on the trivial so‑called first law of behavioural genetics: that no psychological trait is entirely unaffected by genetics.

From Nature

In fundamental ways, however, Plomin’s argument is just old hereditarian wine pipetted into thousands of tiny polygenic bottles.

From Nature