Re: Race: real or imagined?

On Thu, 9 Dec 1999, Andrew Wayne Austin wrote:

> Until these are shown there is no reason for treating
> sociobiology as anything more than a theology (and the similarities are
> striking all the way around).

It's actually quite a bit worse, since most theology that I'm aware of is
less presumptuous and leaves more room for free will.  When theology
becomes ideology, however, its proponents will consider any attack on it
as such as an attack on all decency, good sense and world order.  We've
just witnessed a fine example of the latter.  Similar treatment is
afforded most critics of the _Bell Curve_ et al., because they must invoke
the autonomy of the social sphere sooner or later, and such autonomy is
unpalatable to sociobiology as a political/intellectual movement.  Though
on balance this movement leans to the right, there is nothing novel about
knee-jerk support for determinism on the left either.


Boris Stremlin
bc70219@binghamton.edu