GENES, BEHAVIOR, AND DEVELOPMENTAL EMERGENTISM - ONE PROCESS, INDIVISIBLE

The question of the influence of genes on behavior raises difficult ph ilosophical and social issues. In this paper I delineate what I call t he Developmentalist Challenge (DC) to assertions of genetic influence on behavior, and then examine the DC through an in-depth analysis of t he behavioral genetics of the nematode, C. elegans, with some briefer references to work on Drosophila. I argue that eight ''rules'' relatin g genes and behavior through environmentally-influenced and tangled ne ural nets capture the results of developmental and behavioral studies on the nematode. Some elements of the DC are found to be sound and oth ers are criticized. The essay concludes by examining the relations of this study to Kitcher's antireductionist arguments and Bechtel and Ric hardson's decomposition and localization heuristics. Some implications for human behavioral genetics are also briefly considered.