<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 5/31/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Louis Kontos</b> <<a href="mailto:lkontos@mac.com">lkontos@mac.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><div style="">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.
</div></div></blockquote><div><br>Louis, much of sociobiology is applied to the social insects and not to humans. It is only controversial when applied to humans. <br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><div style="">(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'.
</div></div></blockquote><div><br>You haven't read my posts. I don't know who you are applying to. It is rather annoying Louis. As I have said sociobiology works quite well when applied to the social insects, simply because there are many species to compare across many ecological niches. I am not sure that you know very much about sociobiology. I don't understand who you are replying to.
<br><br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><div style="">(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.
</div></div></blockquote><div><br>You simply haven't read my posts. I only brought up quantum chemistry as an example of a narrow science, narrowly applied. There is no "deterministic" assumption or "reductionist" assumption behind the theory of quantum chemistry, for example. Why should you assume there is one behind sociobiolgy or any other theory based on biology or evolution or genetics. Those who conclude that there is are wrong.
<br> </div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><div style="">(4) all science IS deterministic, which is not to say that either sociobiology or evolutionary psychology are scientific.
</div></div></blockquote><div><br>Again you have not read my posts. All scientific explanations, theories, models, provide narrow views of the world where somehow we can predict or "show cause". This does not make science either deterministic or reductionist. Why talk about sociobiology at all when you don't seem to have read much about it? Miles in another post pointed to Hrdy's work. She did great work on primate infanticide. It is scientific and even theoretical. A good example of sociobiology. There are some aspects of sociobiology that have been used for ideological purposes just as evolutionary theory has been used for ideological purposes. The Newton's theories in their time were used for ideological purposes and probably to a greater extent than sociobiology. So what? It doesn't make it any less of a good and valuable scientific theory. When applied to social insects, mammalian infanticide, etc. sociobiology is a very valuable theory. I have several books I am my shelves on army ants, bees, etc. that I can point to, where this is true. It makes me feel like I am speaking to a person who simply denies evolution for religious reasons to hear a person dismiss sociobiology for ideological reasons.
<br><br>Given my previous statements on the narrowness of sociobiology I simply don't understand the controversy here. <br><br>Jerry<br> </div></div><br>