>>> jf noonan <jfn1 at msc.com> 02/10 9:10 AM >>>
On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Charles Brown wrote:
> Leaving aside civil rights for a moment, I am curious about the
> answer to this question. All this scientific exploration as to the
> genetics or lack of genetic determination or hereditary
> determination of race, why wouldn't we want to know the answer
> about sexual preference too ? What's up on the mystification of
> this issue ?
>
You've made my point. I have no use for the "science" of race as race itself is an ascientific concept. ___________
Charles: Trouble is that argument was not won except by a scientific investigation of race by anti-racists. Race is not an ascientific concept. It is a false biological concept. It is a very valid social scientific concept. From a biological standpoint , there were biological "missing links" between modern humans and apes.
Gee, look at all the good stuff that has come out of studying race. My point is that there is nothing to be gained politically from some pseudo-scientific attempts to normalize sexual orientation, and everything to lose. ________
Charles: I oppose pseudo-scientific anything. My political positions on race are based on scientific principles. Good politics are based on the truth. Any effort to build a politics of sexual orientation without knowing what it actually is , is likely to run into trouble in practice.
__________
I don't like sociobiololgy when the right does it, and I don't like it any better when the left does it. __________
Charles: So to you, the whole scientific discipline of biological anthropology is sociobiology ? Guess what. Human beings are an animal species, not bodiless spirits. The idea that human society has nothing to do with biology is philosophical idealism. All of historical materialism is rooted in the idea that all humans must engage in production , because they must eat, drink, sleep and fulfill physiological needs. That is not sociobiology. The idea that human beings have no biological instincts, that somehow history and society have obliterated them all , doesn't make sense. In fact, I think it is probably politically reactionary, given the link between philosophical idealism and reaction. The politically correct approach is to try to determine the true relationship between biology and culture, not to pretend that there is only the latter. And if we don't get a lot of left wingers involved in biological anthropology, it will be dominated by the right wingers.
Charles Brown