List,
Despite that the issue of biological explanation for complex human
behavior was raised by an individual who is not serious about logic, facts
or with linking hominid development with the rise of human society in a
historical way, the issue has been raised nevertheless, and it is a issue
that bears on the political-ideological function of science in a
capitalist political economy, the scientization of racist ideology, and
the nature of scientific explanation.
Concerning the matter of scientific explanation, we have been presented
with a clear example of the problem with human nature arguments: one can
justify any claim they make about human behavior by appealing to genetics.
Examples of the appeal abound. People say and do anything to gain
political power because their genes drive them to do it. People destroy
the planet because it is in their genes to do so. Capitalism is so
successful because it is genetic. Like the magic bullet selfish behavior,
the appeal to genetics produces a self-sealing argument, a vulgar
tautology, in which all behavior is explained by reference to a
non-falsifiable and infinitely rationalizable construct.
But let's leave aside the fallacy of the self-sealing argument for now and
ask about the science: Has Jay Hanson, or perhaps someone he knows,
isolated the environmental destruction gene? Has the gene for capitalism
been discovered? Has Jay and his team of sociobiologists isolated the
power-mongering gene?
I watched a network news program a couple of days ago where born males
surgically altered to be females were said to, despite being raised
as girls, behave like boys. Being a boy is in the genes, the story went,
and therefore gender is not as social as the biological egalitarian
thinks. The proof was a scene where one of the girls participating in the
study was video-taped playing with army men. "Look," the female reporter
pointed out to the male researcher, "she isn't playing like a little girl.
She goes straight for the army men." "Yes," the researcher sighed, "alas
she is." The ahistorical stance of both this scientific novice and the
psychologist was astounding. But this is the sort of popular scientism
that gets wide play in the media. The thought of little boys down
through history in whatever society they found themselves in having an
urge to play with little green plastic army men but having no little green
plastic army men to play with since little green plastic army men had not
yet been invented would have made me laugh except for the fact that this
is the state of mainstream science and popular understanding, and this
understanding affects real people.
The same ahistorical thinking lies at the heart of the claim that
capitalism is genetic. If capitalism is genetic then how is it that for
most of human existence there was no capitalism? Why did it take so long
for Homo sapiens to finally begin acting as they were genetically
programmed to act? Odd, don't you think, that for all the eons Homo
sapiens have been around they finally got around to their nature only a
few hundreds years ago? Jay and people like him are stuck with having to
claim that there existed for all this time some powerful countervailing
force that prevented human beings from coming home to their true (i.e.
genetic) nature. And, if we are to proceed scientifically, this
countervailing force must be identified. What was it? What was this, what
must have been powerful, countervailing force that kept humans from their
natures for so many tens of thousands of years? The same is true with the
claims that people say and do anything to get political power. Where were
those among the gatherer and hunter driven to say and do anything to gain
political power? What could have suppressed the operation of power-hungry
genes for so long?
There is no scientific evidence for the claims made by Jay and others. The
genetic explanation is nothing more than a one-shot nonfalsifiable slogan
- a theological truth - leveled against any attempt at subtle
understanding of complex and historically variable phenomena. Why do human
beings war? It is in the genes: territorial imperative. Why do men rape
and beat women? It is in the genes; men are by nature to dominate and take
women. Why are men in control of society? Because they are genetically
equipped to lead women. Why is there racism? It is in the genes; you know,
the territorial imperative again. Why are their standards of beauty?
Because our genes are selfish and they want only the nicest vehicles to
ride around in. And so forth and so on. There is nothing scientific about
any of this. It is an ideology.
I received this afternoon a private post that spoke of the truth of
sociobiology and against the resistance of this truth by some social
scientists. In a key rhetorical strategy, social scientific resistance to
racist ideology is always treated as an ideological position in itself.
The post struck me as the same sort of stuff I sometime get from
evangelical Christians who take my atheism as evidence that I am simply
not well enough acquainted with the word of God and that if I would only
listen to the Gospel I would see the light and give up my pagan resistance
and existence. But, like Christianity, I know all too well the nature of
sociobiology, and I attack sociobiology not because I am seeking more
scripture; I come to this issue only to attack a racist political program
masquerading as science.
Thus, more important than the logical and factual failures of
sociobiology, and what explains sociobiology's continuing existence in the
face of total failure, is its utility as a reactionary
political-ideological program.
As we have seen, a sociobiologist is somebody who believes that culture
is, to a significant degree, genetically transmitted. One of the central
foci of the literature of sociobiology are those culture traits that are
shared over the whole of humanity, the so-called culture universal. But,
given the reductionism and central premise of sociobiology, how do we
explain different cultural behavior? Different genetic structures, of
course. The belief that cultures differ because the people differ
genetically we call "racism." Just as the claim that things are the way
they are everywhere because it is in the nature of humans for things to be
that way is used to justify the naturalness of hierarchy, the idea that
cultural differences arise from different human types is used to maintain
hierarchy. Just as the characteristics of the rich are used to explain
their wealth, the characteristics of the white "race" is used to explain
their position of superiority in the world-system.
The reason why so many elements of the mainstream scientific community
resist giving up sociobiological theory, even though there is no
scientific evidence for it, is because this position is politically and
ideologically advantageous. Many of us have understood this for decades.
Still, every several years, we have to expose the latest version of
scientific racism; this time around it is "evolutionary psychology." And
we will in the future have to debunk social Darwinism in some other thinly
disguised form over again. Its constant resurrection is expected, for it
is a vital ideological component not only for the racist program, but also
for the patriarchy and capitalism. From the sociobiological point of view
they can explain and justify gender and racial inequality, development and
underdevelopment, social stratification, or any other systems of
domination. Since there is no scientific support for the position of
sociobiology, and since we have seen the ends to which this point of view
is put, what other reason lies behind its continuing development and
widespread acceptance?
Science is never really separate from politics, but here we have the
simpler matter of politics masquerading as science; and we have the inept
among the scientific community adopting a political-ideology on the basis
of their failure to comprehend this fact. But not all of the advocates of
sociobiology are mere incompetents; there are real material rewards that
come with perfecting social Darwinism.
Andy