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[[Freud]]'s [[Sigmund Freud:Bibliography|work]] is [[full ]] of references to [[biology]]. [[Freud]] regarded [[biology]] as a [[model ]] of [[scientific]] rigor on which to base the new [[science]] of [[psychoanalysis]].

[[Lacan]], however, is strongly opposed to any attempt to [[construct ]] [[psychoanalysis]] upon a [[biology|biological model]], arguing that the direct application of [[biological]] (or [[nature|ethological]]/[[psychology|psychological]]) [[:category:concepts|concepts]] (such as [[adaptation]]) to [[psychoanalysis]] will inevitably be misleading and will obliterate the essential [[distinction ]] between [[nature]] and [[culture]].

Such [[biology|biologizing explanations]] of [[human|human behavior]] ignore, according to [[Lacan]], the ''primacy'' of the [[symbolic order]] in [[human]] [[existence]]. [[Lacan]] sees this "[[biology|biologism]]" in the [[work ]] of those [[psychoanalyst]]s who have confused [[desire]] with [[need]], and [[drives]] with [[instinct]]s, [[:category:concepts|concepts]] which he insists on distinguishing.

[[Lacan]] argues that his [[refusal ]] of [[science|biological reductionism]] is not a ''[[contradiction]]'' of [[Freud]] but a ''[[return]]'' to the [[essence ]] of [[Freud]]'s [[Works of Sigmund Freud|work]].When [[Freud]] used [[biology|biological models]], he did so because [[biology]] was at that [[time ]] a model of [[science|scientific rigor]] in general, and because the [[science|conjectural science]]s had not then achieved the same degree of rigor.

[[Freud]] certainly did not confuse [[psychoanalysis]] with [[biology]] or any [[other ]] exact [[science]], and when he borrowed [[:category:concepts|concepts]] from [[biology]] (such as the [[:category:concepts|concept]] of the [[drive]]) he reworked [[them ]] in such a radical way that they become totally new [[:category:concepts|concepts]]. For example, the [[:category:concepts|concept]] of the [[death instinct]] "is not a question of biology."<ref>{{E}} p. 102</ref> [[Lacan]] expresses this point with a [[paradox]]:<blockquote>"[[Freudian ]] biology has [[nothing ]] to do with biology."<ref>{{S2}} p. 75</ref></blockquote>

[[Lacan]], like [[Freud]], uses [[:category:concepts|concepts]] borrowed from [[biology]] (i.e. [[imago]], dehiscence), and then reworks them in an entirely [[symbolic]] framework. Perhaps the most significant example of this is [[Lacan]]'s [[concept ]] of the [[phallus]], which he conceives as a [[signifier]] and not as a [[body|bodily organ]]. Thus while [[Freud]] conceives of the [[castration complex]] and [[sexual difference]] in [[terms ]] of the [[presence]] and [[absence]] of the [[penis]], [[Lacan]] theorizes them in [[biology|non-biological]], [[biology|non-anatomical]] terms -- the [[presence]] and [[absence]] of the [[phallus]]. This has been one of the main attractions of [[Lacan]]ian [[theory]] for certain [[feminist]] writers who have seen it as a way of constructing a [[biology|non-essentialist]] account of gendered [[subjectivity]].

However, while [[Lacan]] consistently rejects all forms of [[science|biological reductionism]], he also rejects the [[culture|culturalist]] [[position ]] which completely ignores the relevance of [[biology]]. If "[[biology|biologizing]]" is [[understood ]] correctly (that is, not as the reduction of [[psychic ]] phenomena to crude [[biology|biological determination]], but as discerning the precise way in which biological data impact on the [[psychical ]] field), then [[Lacan]] is all in favor of [[biology|biologizing thought]].<ref>{{Ec}} p. 723</ref> The clearest examples of this are [[Lacan]]'s appeals to examples from [[animal]] [[nature|ethology]] to demonstrate the [[power ]] of [[image]]s to act as releasing mechanisms; hence [[Lacan]]'s references to pigeons and locusts in his account of the [[mirror stage]],<ref>{{E}} p. 3</ref> and to crustaceans in his account of [[mimicry]].<ref>{{S11}} p. 99</ref> Thus in his account of [[sexual difference]], [[Lacan]] follows [[Freud]]'s [[rejection ]] of the [[false ]] dichotomy between "anatomy or convention".<ref>{{F}} ''[[Works of Sigmund Freud|New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis]]'', [[SE]] XXII, 1933a. p. 114</ref>