[Marxism] Bonds, Genes, Racism

[Rakesh Bhandari]

  Sayan,
You don't know what you're talking about. John Maynard Smith clearly 
distanced himself from his youthful Marxism much more so than his 
teacher Haldane; in fact I think remember his writing somewhere that 
his increasing distance from his youthful radicalism coincided with 
his growing interest in game theory.

Have you read a word of JMS?

Yet JMS actually accepted and wrote in favor of Kitcher's critique of 
sociobiology in an essay collected in his Did Darwin Get It Right 
(one would think that you would have read Kitcher's and Rose et al's 
books and criticized them carefully on this list before popping off; 
I was also surprised that you evinced so little knowledge about 
baseball despite your posting on this matter); JMS tried to show that 
there may be some evolved hardwiring not for group inequality but 
group solidarity achieved through ritual and the acquisition of 
language. Both arguments are quite qualified, speculative even and 
again JMS agreed with Kitcher's careful deflation of sociobiology 
before it transmuted itself into evolutionary psychology.


Now lay your cards on the table. Which critiques have you read? What 
sociobiological work are you willing to stand by? Patrick Bateson? 
Have you actually read him?  And do note that Rose et al do not deny 
that there is in fact a human nature, and they often try   to show 
why nature/nurture is a false opposition; Rose is remarkably 
sympathetic to Bateson.  And if you're under the delusion that your 
posts are scholarly, then why no careful critiques of where 
sociobiology has gone wrong? Your posts are one sided in defense of 
something vague you call sociobiology.

Perhaps you could say a bit on the Thornhill and Palmer book about 
rape.  Or perhaps you could say something about the Deborah Gordon 
and EO Wilson differences in understanding ant colonies.

I don't think you have actually said anything of substance, but I 
can't read most of the posts. I doubt that you have read even one 
book on sociobiology. So why the strong opinions? If you want to set 
people straight on this list, then present a careful argument against 
some Marxist or radical or feminist or anti racist critique of 
sociobiology. 


Rakesh