The study of the causal determinants of economic growth and development has long aroused an intense interest amongst economists. Until recently, the heart of the debate has mainly focused on the role of capital accumulation, either physical or human, on the impact of institutional or geographical factors, on innovation and technological progress, or on the significance of other growth-promoting factors such as ideas, and even religious and cultural aspects.

In this article, we focus on two different ‘biological hypotheses’ that have been recently proposed by two prominent cliometricians, Robert W. Fogel (post-1982) and Oded Galor (since 2013). The main objective of this paper is to track down the genesis of these researches and to critically analyze the epistemological stances which sup port these approaches.