[lbo-talk] M. Parenti joins the New Atheists?

[Alan Rudy]

I take it that most here, though probably not Mr. Catron, are forgetting or
are unaware of Darwinian attention to mutualism (direct and indirect,
symbiotic [facultative, obligate, monophylic, oligophylic or polyphilic],
non-symbiotic and commensualist between animals and other animals, animals
and plants, animals and bacteria, bacteria and plants and plants and plants)
and contingency... in such a world, a Darwinian model is mighty hard to
model along anything like simplistic competitively selectionistg darwinist
lines, social or otherwise.

The nightmare that is sociobiology and evolutionary psychology lies in their
irresponsible reductionism.  If you're interested in sources D H Boucher, S
James, K H Keeler, 1982, "The Ecology of Mutualism." Annual Review of
Ecology and Systematics. Vol. 13, Pages 315-347 is fabulous and then there's
always Levins and Lewontin's Dialectical Biology...

On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 1:15 PM, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:


> Obviously he's talking about Social Darwinism, but I'm not really sure it
> makes sense to say that a society can be modeled on Darwinian principles.
> Natural selection is a fact of life, like gravity. Can we organize society
> along gravitational principles? Like, we push people over so they fall more
> often?
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com>
>
> "I have many times written (for example in the first chapter of *A Devil's
> Chaplain*) that I am a passionate Darwinian when it comes to the science of
> how life has actually evolved, but a passionate ANTI-Darwinian when it
> comes
> to the politics of how humans ought to behave. I have several times said
> that a society based on Darwinian principles would be a very unpleasant
> society in which to live. I have several times said, starting at the
> beginning of my very first book, *The Selfish Gene*, that we should learn
> to
> understand natural selection, so that we can oppose any tendency to apply
> it
> to human politics."
>
> http://www.richarddawkins.net/articles/2488
>
> This is actually one of the rare occasions when I agree with Dawkins, or at
> least find his perspective more plausible than the other options.
>
> --
> "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
> lytlað."
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

-- 
*********************************************************
Alan P. Rudy
Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
Central Michigan University
124 Anspach Hall
Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
517-881-6319