> That the suggestion to push this theory on the list was to have been
> secret, so as to have it appear that "We (the marxist tradition)"
> was not behind the effort, illustrates the sort of political methods
> that I find reprehensible.
this seems like the type of argument more appropriate to the witchhunts of Sen. McCarthy back in the 50's.
For the Congressional Record, Carrol tries to be quite careful about the scientific statements he makes on e-lists (in my experience). He likes to get confirmation of ideas from people he knows works in related scientific fields. so he writes off-list to check his thoughts.
the notion that he's doing this as some kind of secret conspiracy to shower well-heeled-marxist scientific propaganda on the unsuspecting leftists on the lbo-talk list is ridiculous.
> The idea that we should espouse scientific theories based on whether
> they lend support to an ideology, rather than their conformity to
> facts, expanatory usefulness, and conceptual simplicity is one that
> I find repellant.
whats so wrong with seeing whether edelman's views on neural darwinism jibe with a marxist view of social relations? its an fascinating line of thought it seems to me. i can't imagine what you have against it. do you see this brew of neural darwinism and marxism something like racist's use of genetic research for its own ideological purposes? i believe you can;t make that argument here.
Lots of times, when new scientific theories and techniques (its pretty rare that a whole new line of theory actually emerges) comes into the larger scientific and popular conciousness, people sit around and "play" with it, see what its made of, how is it relevant to what their work is, how does it look and feel philosphically, epistomologically (sp???). what can it do, not do???
in this light, your criticism of Carrol seems empty to me.
les schaffer