On May 28, 2006, at 1:08 AM, Angelus Novus wrote:
>
> --- Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Hey, how is it that homo sapiens sapiens is
>> apparently
>> the only gendered species in the world that has
>> somehow miraculously escaped behavioral relations
>> between the genders being influenced by biology?
>
> Hi Chris,
>
> All good points that you make here. The contemporary
> leftist aversion to evolutionary and biological
> explanations for human behavior, is, as Steven Pinker
> points out in his useful _The Blank Slate_, a result
> of the fact that many leftists are unable to separate
> "is" from "ought." Just because something is
> "natural" does not mean that it is socially desirable.
>
> I wish more lefties would take up the call in Pinker's
> book to integrate the insights of evolutionary
> psychology into progressive politics. Refusal to do
> so just allows the Right-wingers to benefit precisely
> from the above-mentioned is/ought fallacy, with
> specious comparisons between the competition of the
> "free market" (a socially constructed institution if
> ever there was one) and the process of natural
> selection.
>
> I'm not arguing for a biological reductionist position
> to explain social institutions. I think there's still
> valuable incites to be gleaned by figures like Judith
> Butler on issues subject constitution and such. I
> just think many leftists need to pull their heads out
> of their asses and stop merely relying on "correct"
> scientists like Steven Rose or Richard Lewontin to
> counter the claims of evolutionary psychology, as if
> natural science is about the search for the correct
> "line." Critiques of science as a social institution
> are valid, but that doesn't address the claims of
> empirical research.
>
> In any case, Carrol'`s "embarassment" for you is just
> another case of him playing the commissar, which is
> his thing on this list.
>
>
>
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