> ___________
>
> 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.
Excuse me for not being more clear, I meant it is not a valid biological concept.
> 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.
So what do you think sexual orientation is? I don't think there is anything much to be learned about it from mucking about in the genome. I have enough personal experience to convince me it is not wired into the body like hair color or pecker length.
> Charles: So to you, the whole scientific discipline of biological
> anthropology is sociobiology ?
No, and I said no such thing. I said looking for the nature of sexual orientation in genetics was pointless and stupid. And dangerous.
> 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.
Well that's all very nice and I, of course, didn't say anything that contradicts the above. What I said is you will not find sexual orientation wired in the genome.
I ask again, what do you think sexual orientation is and how does that influence your politics of sexual orientation?
--
Joseph Noonan jfn1 at msc.com