ian
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of D.L.
> Sent: Monday, August 02, 1999 4:16 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: Blacks can't be said to be more than a little bit
> genetically inferior--leadingsociologists conclude
>
>
>
>
> C. Rakesh,
>
>
> From the first, Darwinism created in the popular mind its evil twin
> Social Darwinism. While Darwin was a real scientist - full of skepticism
> and respect for the unknown. Others, including those who might
> otherwise be
> called scientists, have used evolutionary theory to put the world in an
> imagined order with themselves almost invariably at the top. While people
> like Stephen Jay Gould accept the notion of randomness and unknown events,
> people like Steven Pinker try to fashion an evolutionary "fact" out of all
> their present observations.
>
> This leads to idiotic efforts such as the search for the
> "homosexuality
> gene". There is one gene for blue eyes because blue eyes are simply an
> expression of a few pigments. One protein can easily affect such
> a system.
> Processes of the mind are obviously the result of hundreds, possibly
> thousands of genes governing the development of the brain, not to mention
> those genes that govern the reaction of the brain to various environmental
> cues. Not only that, but those genes are obviously forming
> something which
> is, by its very nature, plastic and adaptable. After all, If there is one
> clear adaptive advantage Homo sapiens has it's that our minds are
> adaptable.
>
> The effort to assert that the way people act today reflects
> their genes
> and not our society is inherently normative. Underlying it is the claim
> that our society is a reflection of the "true" primeval human society.
> Therefore, how well a black child reads a "Dick and Jane" book is
> not a test
> of how alienation affects an individual member of a clearly social species
> but a test of intelligence. After all, "Dick and Jane" played an
> important
> role in our coming down from the trees, as everyone knows. Our
> society, in
> the minds of the Social Darwinist, is as pure as a laboratory.
> It's an odd
> assertion since the first thing a scientist removes from the
> laboratory (or
> tries to) are social or emotional factors that might cloud the
> interpretation of results. The Social Darwnist, however, is not checking
> man's behavior against nature or precise mathematical logic, but prejudice
> itself. His answers are baked in to the "experiment".
>
>
> peace
>
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