> ideological outlook eerily similar to that of religious creationism. Like
> their fundamentalist Christian counterparts, the most extreme
> antibiologists suggest that humans occupy a status utterly different from
> and clearly "above" that of all other living beings. And, like the
> religious fundamentalists, the new academic creationists defend their
> stance as if all of human dignity -- and all hope for the future -- were at
> stake.
Not really a strong argument for the results of a biologically friendly anthropology as much as name calling of its critics. If the results don't withstand the scrutiny of these critics, then it is less than academic to name call them 'creationists'.
> However, contemporary antibiologists decry a vast range of academic
> pursuits coming from very different theoretical corners -- from hypotheses
> about the effects of genes and hormones, to arguments about innate
> cognitive modules and grammar, to explorations of universal ritual form and
> patterns of linguistic interaction.
Oh really is it 'decrying' the critics do? Why not state the best criticisms and answer them. Since it's a journalistic piece, perhaps just one or two of the best reasons for skepticism towards the best biosocial anthropology. So far this piece is just ad ahominem argument.
> All these can be branded as
> "essentialist," hence wrongheaded and politically mischievous.
> Paradoxically, assertions about universal human traits and tendencies are
> usually targeted just as vehemently as assertions about differences: There
> are no differences between groups, seems to be the message, but there is no
> sameness among them either.
Where's the paradox. Nothing about group difference or similarity that is fixed may indeed be very interesting in terms of what a social scientist or anthropologist in particular is trying to explain.
> As neo-Marxist and behaviorist theories of the tabula rasa human gained
> ground over the next decade, other disciplines followed anthropology's
> lead. So completely was sociology purged of biology that when Nicholas
> Petryszak analyzed twenty-four introductory sociology textbooks in 1979, he
> found that all assumed that "any consideration of biological factors
> believed to be innate to the human species is completely irrelevant in
> understanding the nature of human behavior and society."
Well even Maynard Smith emphasises that the greatest developments in human history have been too rapid to be explained by biological change. So the assumption of complete irrelevance in terms of epochal change in human history is pretty compelling.
> a horror of
> essentialism (extending to the idea of any innate human traits) and a
Those traits being...
> antibiologism and simplified postmodernism has tended to obliterate the
> possibility that human beings have anything in common,
The working class has common interests as a result of the kind of class ridden society that humans have constructed, i.e. as a result of social construction, not due to the imprint of evolution. What we have Ehrenreich doing her is completion of her break from Marxism as if sitting on the DSA board was not enough.
> contingent, he adds, "Some facts and theories are truly universal (and
> true) -- and no variety of cultural traditions can change that...we can't
> let a supposedly friendly left-wing source be exempt from criticism from
> anti-intellectual positions."
Well those universal facets may not be interesting to anthropologists in terms of what they are trying to explain.
> both the secular and Christian varieties, makes clear: "It is perfectly
> possible to hold that genes exert a statistical influence on human
> behaviour while at the same time believing that this influence can be
> modified, overridden or reversed by other influences."
But these other influences are invoked deus ex machina. How does he explain their development such that they override prior influences? Really he seems the real creationist, not Lewontin and Levins or Alan Goodman and Thomas Leatherman.
>
> Finally, many secular creationists are a few decades out of date on the
> kind of "human nature" that evolutionary biology threatens to impose on us.
> Feminists and liberal academics were perhaps understandably alarmed by the
> aggressive "man the hunter" image that prevailed in the sixties and
> seventies; and a major reason for denying the relevance of evolution was a
> horror of the nasty, brutish cavemen we had supposedly evolved from. But
> today, evolutionary theory has moved to a more modest assessment of the
> economic contribution of big-game hunting (as opposed to gathering and
> scavenging) and a new emphasis on the cooperative -- even altruistic --
> traits that underlie human sociality and intelligence. We don't have to
> like what biology has to tell us about our ancestors, but the fact is that
> they have become a lot more likable than they used to be.
I would no more want to ground politics today in such biology than in the old biology.
> In portraying human beings as pure products of cultural context, the
> secular creationist standpoint not only commits biological errors but
> defies common sense.
Defying common sense is not so bad.
In the exaggerated postmodernist perspective
> appropriated by secular creationists, no real understanding or
> communication is possible between cultures.
One does not have to be biosocial anthropologist to contest this, and
these authors surely know better. This thing is smack full of high school
debater's tactics.
> their local implications. But as Ellsworth asks: "At the level of detail of
> 'sameness' that postmodernists are demanding, what makes them think that
> two people in the same culture will understand each other?"
They often don't. That's why Manhattan was sold for beads.
Already noted that their argument for Hirschfeld. well there is no argument for it. Or why it is in the least bit plausible.
I can see why *The Nation* received a lot of criticism for this rather thin manifesto for--what?
Yours Rakesh