Message-ID: <360AC94D.4A73B3F8@calumet.purdue.edu>
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 17:35:58 -0500
From: Alan Spector <spector@calumet.purdue.edu>
Reply-To: spector@calumet.purdue.edu
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK <psn@csf.colorado.edu>,
        "ahs-talk@listserv.ncsu.edu" <ahs-talk@listserv.ncsu.edu>,
        WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>, revs@csf.colorado.edu
Subject: More biological determinism nonsense
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Note from Alan Spector:

To PSN, WSN, REVS and AHS, with apologies to those who are on more than
one of these list and will receive duplicates---I found the following
posting on another e-mail network (yes, I do have a life away from the
computer screen...) and I thought it was relevant to interests expressed
on all three lists.

If the tone of the posting seems a bit "negative" and/or sarcastic, keep
in mind the genocidal, "negative" impact on Jews and others, the last
time biological determinism became a dominant ideological force in a
country torn by alienation, with its population split between
nihilistically denying all  and embracing live-for-the moment decadence
and ultra-relativist theory in the face of massive social crisis and
those who dogmatically reached for dangerous forms of mystical
spiritualism along with its pseudo-opposite, pseudo-science, both of
which provide "easy" answers to relieve the pain of confronting massive
social crisis. I'm referring, of course, to Nazi culture and philosophy,
with some unsettling parallels to intellectual currents today
(post-modernism, political fundamentalist religion & biological
determinism).
Here comes the repost-(feel free to repost elsewhere):
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The Sept. 18 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education has an
article "Are Human Behavior and Culture Products of Our Biology?"
Featuring a photo of E.O. Wilson, the article reports on the
Association for Politics and the Life Sciences, an offshoot of the
American Political Science Association that recently met in Boston.

Wilson gave the keynote address, calling for the biologization of the
social sciences that this conference represented.  James Q. Wilson,
co-author with Richard Herrnstein of "Crime and Human Nature" back in
the mid-1980s, told the conference that biologically evolved behavior
has three characteristics:  "It should be found in all human cultures,
it
should serve a useful purpose, and it should be inherited."

The article went on to describe several examples of the application
of work inspired by E.O. Wilson's call for "Consilience."  The first
example was research by U. of Georgia ecology professor Patricia
Adair Gowaty.  Based on study of animal sexual behavior, she asserted
that women who are dependent on men would have extramarital affairs
with men who could provide better resources.  Women with more
resources, that is, "competent or lucky women," are more likely to
have affairs with men who "turn them on."  Men married to such
women are more likely to have affairs themselves, because their wives
are self-reliant.

What brilliant research!

But you ain't heard nothin' yet!

Two researchers, Neil I. Wiener and Christian G. Mesquida, at York
University in Toronto, studied 153 countries and concluded that those
with large proportions of young males aged 15 to 29 have suffered
more deaths in wars.  More youthful males means more collective
aggression, which at its biological core comes from competition for
women to mate with.

So that is what Rwanda and Yugoslavia are all about!  EO Wilson is
such a great inspiration!

Finally, it turns out that these scientific geniuses have discovered
that democracy is impossible.  Humans generally cannot make conscious
rational decisions, because unconscious parts of the brain rrespond
more quickly.  And they have discovered members of the House of
Representatives who wear beards are more liberal than those who are
clean shaven.  That is because liberals are more maternal, while
conservatives are more paternal, and liberals grow beards to remind
voters that they really are males.  But the same pattern doesn't hold
for the Senate, where no one, liberal or conservative, wears a beard.

It is hard to find words to describe this pathetic pseudo-science.
The only thing I can think of to say is we should respect our fascist
academic enemies strategically, but despise them tactically.  Their
rump gathering of sociobiological wannabes certainly belong together
with Bill and Monica, fashioning stupid explanations for why
degenerate presidents have tawdry affairs and why capitalism produces
genocidal wars.

In the same issue of The Chronicle, by the way, there is a back page
article by Bruce Robbins, editor of Social Text, discussing the
disciplinary imperialism of the consilient sociobiologists and the
relativist postmodernists.  It is mainly a liberal call for live and
let live.

We must step up our organizing against these fascists.  Even the
stupidist biological determinists and postmodernists can flourish if
we do not organize against them.

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end of repost
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