[lbo-talk] Matriarchy/Patriarchy

Louis Kontos lkontos at mac.com
Wed May 31 19:50:52 PDT 2006


I hope Doug will forgive my fourth, I believe, post for today. I don't usually post several times in one day, but lately I've been looking distractions from work, and this is the best outlet (mea culpa). The problem I have with Jerry's post, framed as a query, is that sociobiology is never, not in a single instance, content with 'showing cause' in regard to simple behavior. (1) It deals with history and society, not only the animal world, from which it generalizes about human affairs -- in the most reductionistic fashion. (2) It is NOT scientific, but speculative and idealistic in a perverse way. It's generalizations are all over-generalizations, not circumscribed by 'evidence'. (3) It attaches itself to 'quantum chemistry' and other 'hard' sciences in order to validate the most ideologically naive/ regressive postulates imaginable. What sociobiology has to do with chemistry (quantum or just plain ordinary) is beyond me. (4) all science IS deterministic, which is not to say that either sociobiology or evolutionary psychology are scientific. Science has its place in human affairs, e.g., in making its discoveries, insights, speculations, theories, etc., available to people (in various capacities, e.g., people who seek to kill millions of people, or destroy the earth, or create democracy-- whatever) who make decisions not on a scientific basis, but otherwise -- e.g., in a principled or unprincipled way, with daring or cowardice, opportunistically or fairly, even against 'objective' interests, etc. Sociobiology is ideology in scientific garb. If it were established science, it's claims would be more circumstanced, and it's relevance could be debated openly and honestly. Instead, it is brought into debate -- like all ideology -- in order to shut it down. Louis

On May 31, 2006, at 3:45 PM, Jerry Monaco wrote:


>
>
> On 5/31/06, Louis Kontos <lkontos at mac.com> wrote:
> > He would laugh at sociobiological
> > arguments. Everything he wrote was in opposition to the
> deterministic
> > (philosophical and scientific) logic of his day.)
>
> Louis,
>
> I've been meaning to ask both Ted and you this question. Why do
> you think that just because a person thinks that sociobiology or
> evolutionary psychology or for that matter quantum chemistry are
> possibly good scientific theories that, that person is necessarily
> believes in "determinism" in some broad sense? There is no
> necessary connection.
>
> If people do make a connection it is the common human mistake
> (probably biologically endowed for good evolutionary reasons) of
> over-generalizing from a perceived pattern. Many non-scientists
> and scientists over-generalize and try to apply theoretical models
> beyond their limited testing grounds. Sometimes this leads to
> insights, often not. A good scientific theory will lay out
> "determinants' by necessity because unless it can explain, describe
> and some how "show cause" it will not be a a good scientific
> theory. This is simply the condition of theory making. Thus some
> people can be deluded into thinking that all science is
> "deterministic" (once again using the word in the broad sense that
> it is being used here). A scientific theory is not broadly
> deterministic but only narrowly so because it can only pick out
> small pieces of "the world" to describe. If the theoretical model
> matches what we are trying to describe, in an approximate and
> narrow way, as it does when sociobiology is used to describe social
> insects, then good for the theory. That is about all. What ever
> coincidence there is between our capacity to understand the world
> in theoretical terms and the actual working of the world (scare
> quotes assumed) is a biologically contingent fact of our cognitive
> capacity. Just because there is no other way for a theory to be
> constructed does not mean that the people constructing the theory
> can't see how narrow the theory is and how much it leaves out.
>
> Part of what the any theory leaves out is any position on broader
> questions of "determinism", "indeterminism", or "self-determinism,"
> "free will," etc. It is too bad for us that there is no
> theoretical knowledge on these subjects, only poetical intuition,
> and good story telling.
>
> Ted said in another thread:
>
> On 5/31/06, Ted Winslow <egwinslow at rogers.com> wrote:
> >So the answer to the following question:
>
> > Is there a biological component in the unique human capacity to form
> > relations of mutual recognition ?
>
> > is "no" where, as in the following, you mean by "biological" not
> self-
> > determined in the above sense.
>
> I am not sure I understand what he is saying. If our capacities to
> make choices are not biological capacities then what are they?
> Where do they come from? Are we not biological in some very broad
> sense? Just because we cannot make a biological theory to describe
> what ever Ted is calling "self-determination" does not mean that
> whatever it is is something other than part of our brain/mind/body.
>
> Again, none of you seem to actually want to take the time to
> explain what I see as not making sense in thinking through these
> questions.
>
> Jerry
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

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