This is IMHO just another example of ideology trumping science. As some Christians reject the scientific evidence for evolution because it conflicts with their beliefs, so Rose, Gould and Lewontin reject the genetic basis of behavior because they are wedded to Marx's vision of historic progress and the dialectic.
I loved Pinker's book, BTW. It's determinedly rational, and in essence highly conservative; it insists social policy must be based on human nature as it is, and not as we would like it to be. It insists that human nature is basically immutable. It affirms the necessity of equality before the law, while rejecting the ludicrous ida that humans are born with equal abilities, traits, virtues, etc.
"Under these circumstances, I can no longer in good conscience continue to cooperate with official Israeli institutions, including universities. I will attend no scientific conferences in Israel, and I will not participate as referee in hiring or promotion decisions by Israeli universities, or in the decisions of Israeli funding agencies. I will continue to collaborate with, and host, Israeli scientific colleagues on an individual basis."
Socialism Today: Survival of the surliest
Both sides, in fact, claim to be the true heirs of Darwin, and put up good arguments to this effect. But their quarrels range far more widely than mere historical legitimacy. They encompass not only arguments about scientific fact - these are in some ways the least important - but disagreements about the role and purpose of science, and personal animosities too. These elements mix unpredictably. There are friendships across parties and there have been quarrels within them. But, despite their fuzziness, the contending parties do clearly exist.
Like the original sociobiologists, their opponents form a well-defined group, held together by bonds of friendship and mutual esteem as much as by ideological agreement. The key opponents of adaptationism were Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould and Steven Rose, disparate figures from differing areas of biology. Gould was a palaeontologist, Lewontin, a biologist, and Rose, an Englishman now professor of biology at the Open University, started off as a neurologist who was drawn into the field by the controversies over how much of IQ is inherited. It is relevant that all are Jewish and were more or less Marxist: being Jewish gave them a historical reason to be suspicious of anything reminiscent of a traditional eugenic way of thinking. Being Marxist gave them a strong bias against any theory which saw human biological nature as more important than human culture...
To those of us who are not metaphysically naturalist or agnostic, the mind is not what the brain does and thus free will actually exists and therefore punishment is always just for bad conscious decisions.
[RWP:] I loved Pinker's book, BTW. It's determinedly rational, and in essence highly conservative; it insists social policy must be based on human nature as it is, and not as we would like it to be. It insists that human nature is basically immutable. It affirms the necessity of equality before the law, while rejecting the ludicrous idea that humans are born with equal abilities, traits, virtues, etc.
Hi RWP! IMHO, both these guys are barking up the wrong tree. Whoever is or is not a Marxist in this piece, it is clear to me that both Lewontin and Pinker are full-blown Marxian thinkers. And that is the reason why both are thoroughly unintelligible. (To me at least. :^) Pinker’s problem is especially amusing.)
To demonstrate this proposition: RWP, you seemingly invoke the qualities of determined rationality, conservative essence, and social polity based on human nature “as it is, not as we would like it to be.” Thus you abstract from nature, just as the Marxian thinker does.
What I have noticed about Marxian thinkers (HRC is a great example from the “current events” category), however, is a great attraction to perfectly subjective projections of all kinds, “in the name of objectivity.”
RWP, with all respect, it seems to me you beg the critically key question four times. To which one might object:
(1) What good is rationality at all, if it is “determined?”
(2) If we want to speak of conservative essence, don’t we first have to say what it is we feel is essential to conserve?
(3) Whose definition of “human nature” is in play here, RWP? I have noticed that Marxists of all types and stripes tend to have a very low estimation of human nature in general, of its poor native ability to “take care of itself.” (It takes expert guardians to make sure Joe Sixpack can safely live through his next day; that is, without destroying himself and all innocent bystanders from ignorance and bad decisions….)
I think I can reasonably adduce plenty of evidence from the historical record to demonstrate this phenomenon.
But of course a (non-Marxist) Christian like myself will tend to understand human nature, human society, and humanity itself in a radically differently vein….
(4) BONUS QUESTION: What is this immutability business? That which is immutable is something that does not change in the course of time. Which suggests to me you recognize that an immutable thing is a “timeless” thing. But how does immutability – by whatever definition -- fit into your picture of the Universe?
FREEBIE QUESTION (i.e., for extra points): If you could constitute man differently, or recreate him more to your liking, what would you change? What would “Man” look like, as the result of your “supernatural,” creative intervention into the Project for the Progressive Reconstitution of Human Nature? And, beyond that, what would the order of human society look like, after such tender mercies have been performed?
As Plato said, Society is but Man written in larger letters.
It seems to me the fatal defect of the Marxian thought process is that it fundamentally imagines and posits the world as a “closed system.” Unfortunately for its method, human beings are not closed systems, although they are in the world.
To the extent the Marxian thinker wants to think about human beings at all, individually or collectively (i.e., in social modes larger and more complex than the individual), he’s got the “wrong model.”
If we are to debate these points fruitfully, RWP, whose rules do we play by?