[Marxism] The transition to capitalism: is it in our genes?

[Sayan Bhattacharyya]

On 8/8/07, Einde O'Callaghan <einde at gmx.de> wrote:

> If that is "fin-de-siecle" enough for you why not look at Stephen Rose's
> Lifelines (1997), which is just a devastating about the sort of crap
> you're espousing.

I've actually read "Lifelines". I'm sorry, but what I've written was
"Almost *everything* is due to genetic AND environmental reasons,"
which is exactly what Lewontin, Rose etc. say.

Both those who argue on the side of *only* genes, *and* those who
argue on the side of *only* environment, are equally throwing out a
baby with the bathwater. I was replying to Mark Lause who said that
combining genes and environment is uninformative. Unfortunately,
that's the only way that things actually work. Rose or Lewontin would
disagree with Mark Lause on this.

And I'm not "espousing" anything. I pointed out that the scientific
approach would be to weigh the evidence, and not throw a hypothesis
out on *merely* ideological grounds.