Re: rounding up posses

Boris-

The posses bit was lighthearted sarcasm...I guess sarcasm doesn't travel
well.

> 1) What specific findings in the realm of human genetics are people who
> call themselves sociobiologists responsible for (some posters have
> virtually equated sociobiology with genetics, others have made the
> opposite claim that it's nothing more than a logical exercise)?


I have been arguing mainly on logical grounds against sweeping dismissals
of an entire research program.  I am not familiar with the field in any
detail, but I do know that the theorists and researchers are not mainly
fascists, or even crypto-fascists.  I will offer the same citations I gave
last fall for those with the time to dig into it:

The Adapted Mind:  Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture
-ed. by Barkow, Cosmides & Tooby (Oxford/95)

Evolution In Mind
-Plotkin (Harvard/98)


> 
> 2) Which sociobiologists define their work as the study of the interaction
> of human, social and material agency? (I know Wilson speaks of the
> interaction of genetics and the environment, but his program of
> consilience explicitly advocates material reductionism and an absorption
> of the social and human sciences by the hard sciences).


I offered a quote from Wilson's "Consilience" to exactly this effect in
the last go-round.  But even if that is not the top priority of the
evolutionary psychologists, we social scientists can pursue the
interactions.  Personally I am in favor of focusing our disciplinary war
against (mainstream) economics. 


RH