I don't know anything about your perspective on this matter (since I haven't participated in LBO-TALK except lately and you never wrote on PEN-L on this subject as far as I remember). I attributed the willful ignorance of the effect of the whole on the parts [point 2] to the SoBs, not to you.
In no way was I trying to equate you with people like Arthur E. Gandolfi, Anna S. Gandolfi and David P. Barash (_Economics as an evolutionary science: From utility to fitness_) who represent the "bad economics" and "bad sociobiology" that Justin refers to.
But why do you count "sociobiological explanation" as a coherent biological explanation, since the sociobiological school arbitrarily rules out some sorts of biological explanation (such as sexual selection)? That _a priori_ blinkering of perspective makes coherence difficult.
Of course, the answer is that you define "sociobiology" differently than others do. See below.
> So: I am not a total reductionist wrt to sociobiology.
> No good SB is. There is bad SB. There is bad
> economics. That doesn't mean we damn either
> discipline, just its bad practice. OK? (I am becoming
> annoyed, sorry, Jim.) SB is a tool. It has its uses.
> It offers powerful partial explanations of various
> important aspects of human behavior.
Look, you're the one who equated sociobiology with biological explanation _per se_ and implied that those who don't accept that package must embrace Intelligent Design or social determinatism.
I don't think arguments about the meaning of words are worth our time, but the usual convention is to equate "sociobiology" with what you call "bad sociobiology." This convention is not just on the left: the "bad sociobiologists" equate their view with "sociobiology" and also with Darwinism, just as the "bad economists" of the Chicago school equate what they do with "economics" (putting Keynes _et al_ into the horrible ditch of sociology).
For intellectual clarity's sake, I am going to continue to see "sociobiology" as a subset of "biological explanation" or "Darwinism." The latter includes other kinds of logic besides reductionism and dogmatic adaptationism. JD