hereditarian

American  

[huh-red-i-tair-ee-uhn] / həˌrɛd ɪˈtɛər i ən /

noun

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

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adjective

1. characteristic of or based on such belief.

   hereditarian theories.

Other Word Forms

• hereditarianism
  noun

Etymology

Origin of hereditarian

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 • Dec. 27, 2021

Like Francis Galton, the hereditarian Victorian biostatistics pioneer, Dawkins has a quantitative turn of mind, but is better at algorithms than theorems.

From Nature • Sep. 8, 2015