>
>
> There are unexpected pleasures in seeing the success of otherwise junk
> capitalist economic theories in the explanation of natural phenomena.
But don't you think that these explanations of natural phenomena become imbued with bourgeois ideology simply by the use of capitalist methodology i.e. explaining wholes in terms of the parts? That also seems to be a point Marxist biologists are making. Is society not a natural phenomenon?
> At
> any rate, Maynard Smith is not applying "game theory to the social
> relations in which people are embedded" but to bacterial plasmid, parasitic
> hymenoptera (wasps and ichneumonids), lions, hamadryas baboon, etc, It is
> also surely not correct that Maynard Smith believes that "poverty is a
> matter of where you end up on the genetic roulette wheel"--see his careful
> deflationary critiques of recent attempts in sociobiology in his Did Darwin
> Get It Right which is also a defense of the gene centered view of
> evolution.
Yes, but as I mentioned on this list, Dawkins wrote the intro to the Canto edition of Maynard Smith 's classic "Theory of Evolution" where he said Maynard Smith's theory is a bulwark against the "political correctness" invading the discipline even though MS wrote this book when he was a Marxist. MS, from his review of Levins and Lewontin in "Games, Sex and Evolution" seems to be agnostic with regards to dialectics. Smith is also an adaptationist, who typically believe that only the fittest survive. I dunno, I'm still trying to put the pieces together here.
>
>
> By the way, Rose argues that Haldane would not have been amused by
> Hamilton's development of his off handed comment about about kin selection
> As for Haldane's tortuous political path, marked by violent involvement in
> WWI, see Gary Werksey's Invisible College ( a book about Britain's
> Communist scientists--Levy, Hogben, Haldane, Bernal). It is true that
> Haldane thought the mean intelligence of Britain was declining due to the
> overproduction of the working class (another kind of overproduction
> crisis); his background was elite beyond elite, yet the actual policy
> recommendations he made were radically egalitarian. His political twists
> and turns seem quite complex.
Haldane was a columnist for the Daily Worker and a CP member until the late 40's or early 50's when he broke over Lysenkoism. Haldane thought some of Lysenko's ideas sound, he just didn't like the submitting of science to politics as occured under Stalin. J.B.S. until his death was an admirer of Stalin. J.B.S. did think that people should face the truth no matte how politically and socially unpalatable. He also worked for British Naval Intelligence during WW2, because he thought his work might help save the lives of working class soldiers, which it probably did.
Also, I thought cell biology had been incorporated into chemistry.
Sam
>
> The always thought provoking and eloquent Mr Grimes concluded: "the biology of
> the cell is richer in relationships than any assembly of ideologies or
> theoretical designs. That's the problem." This is exactly Rose's argument
> for rejecting an assembly of reductionist theoretical designs which he
> thinks are retained for ideological reasons only despite the great
> obstances they present to the explanation of complexity in the biological
> world. Maynard Smith also notes: "The history of my own science of
> genetics has persuaded me that people who decide issues on the basis
> philosophical views are likely to get it wrong. Consider Karl Pearson,
> whose positivist philosophy led him to deny the existence of genes, and
> T.D. Lysenko, who Marxism led him to espouse the inheritance of acquired
> characters." This seems to me a good warning against the invocation of
> dialectical materialism to settle any issue.
>
> Yours, Rakesh
>
> >Listers might be interested in the excellent paper by Phil Gasper on
> >Marxism and
> >Science at:http://www.littleprints.free-online.co.uk/pubs/isj79/bookwatc.htm
> >
> > Sam Pawlett