Furthermore, all biology isn't genetic! Of course!

One last, minor point. Something can be "biological" without being
"genetic."   A recent important book on obsessive-compulsive disorder
reports that the brains of people diagnosed as having this disorder get
flooded with a particular type of chemical as they are having an incident.
In the study, one group was denied the opportunity to act out the disorder.
After a number of months, the "urge" to commit the act, and the flooding of
the brain with the chemical, significantly declined.  In other words, there
ARE some things as "habits", like the palpable urge to eat a dessert or the
psychological-physically palpable discomfort when NOT wearing a seat belt in
an auto in some situations.

Whether or not you accept that brain study, we do know that conditioned
responses are a fundamental way we learn, from the nostalgic feelings
generated by an old song to the rush of adrenaline when we see a bouncing
ball in the street in front of our moving car. Of course they are
biological, but they are not genetic.

But because we can more clearly feel the biological-chemical aspect of the
emotion, it can lead us to think that we are dealing with something "buried
very deep inside our being."   But developing those conditioned responses
did not come from our genes nor even from pre-natal environments, and
treating destructive behavior (assuming first and foremost that the
definition of "destructive" is not a pro-capitalist ideology laden
definition where all rebellion is seen as "destructive"!!)----that treating
destructive behavior does not require eugenics--forced sterilization,
selective breeding, etc.; NOR does it require gene therapy; NOR does it
require drug therapy. It might just require putting someone in an
environment where pro-social, constructive behavior is rewarded/reinforced,
rather than an environment where anti-social, greedy, destructive behavior
is the institutional norm, accompanied by pious statement of morality.

In other words, that's why we have to get rid of capitalism and create a
world free of exploitation of all kinds, and a world free of the culture and
norms that justifies or apologizes for even the slightest forms of
inequality or exploitation. Marx called his first major attempt at
discussing it: "The Communist Manifesto."


Alan Spector

----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Douglas Whitaker <mrkdwhit@wallet.com>
To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Sent: Saturday, December 11, 1999 5:29 AM
Subject: the various shades of gray in sociobiology, and causal modeling


>
> >
> >Richard Hutchinson wrote the following:
> >
> >Not everyone on this list follows lockstep an anti-sociobiological
> >orthodoxy.  That human behavior is caused partly by biological factors
and
> >partly by sociological factors is the sensible starting point.  It leaves
> >open all the particulars for empirical research to determine.  To reject
> >biological causation in toto is to remain willfully ignorant
>
>
>         While certainly humans are biological and sociological, the
> narratives around these attempt to posit different causal structures,
when,
> of course    causation is terribly difficult to 'prove.' An easier
> theoretical modeling is interaction between biology and sociological
> factors, and I would say, in a complex world without 'natural experiments'
> that hold societies that are 'totally biological' verses others that are
> 'totally sociological' this issue of singular causal effects models
becomes
> a metaphysical argument, that as Alan wrote, can be assumed to have
ideology
> instead of a theoretical/empirical bent to it.
>
>         Certainly, there are interactions, granted. That's about all we
can
> say.  Studies on the sociological distribution of (biological) serotonin
and
> testosterone should give anyone pause towards arguing in any overarching
> sense for 'one OR the other.' Is the empirical phenomenon separate? What
are
> separate are only different ideological casts to the issue, likely due to
> the Babel of the university setting.
>
>         On a personal note, the above types of studies seem to indicate
that
> there is an insidious biological reification of SOCIOLOGICAL
> positionalities, instead of the other way around.
>
>         Besides we are overly simplifying an issue: what people define
> sociobiology as being can widely vary: though we have been discussing
> sociobiology as biological determinism,  I have seen at least six separate
> definitions of  'sociobiology:'
>
>         1) biological determinism: biology causes social structures and/or
> individual behavior and social outcomes, operationalized from readings of
> ethology (animal socialization) [which of course I assume people
comprehend
> is based on further assumptions about animal populations as being
'contrary'
> to human populations in their socialization skills. Thus, how does that
> stand up when various ape groups do show forms of social learning, etc. So
> what is the justification there?] Other 'readings' attempt to show and
> define by showing; in the 1800s, on the social level, from imperialist
> driven racism frames; on the individual/social level:  phrenological
> studies, bottling brains or Europeans carving up indigenous people for
> medical study, looking for 'differences'; skulls of famous people, etc.;
> biology (thorugh phrenology and racism) becomes a surrogate social
religion
> called into justifying status hierarchies throughout the 1800s, with the
> decline of legitmation of monarchical states and widening social contacts
of
> peoples; Comte's attitude toward the social world as operating like a
> biological model; Social Darwinism.
>
>         2) biological reflexivity:  A milder form of biological
determinism,
> e.g, Wilson (regardless of the one sided hoopla around him)and others'
> claims for genetic AND environmental influences on human social behavior.
> This begs the question of why separate them as phenomena, meaning, what
are
> genes? Active modelers or passive recorders of environmental phenomena? Or
both?
>
>         3) biologically undeterministic 'sociobiology:' sometimes called
> biosociology (though people differentiate between different uses of the
term
> biosociology: some equate sociobiology and biosociology as the same, and
> some prefer to use the term 'sociobiology' for biosociology defined
herein,
> exclusively); the study of ONLY and explicitly the biological reifications
> of social structures (testosterone/serotonin in 'felt' status hierarchies,
> female menstruation, nutrition and psychoanalytic states studies  etc.) I
> CAUTION that different people use the words sociobiology and biosociology
in
> different senses than here. The use of 'biosociology' in this text is only
> my recommendation to call the specific category of biological reification
of
> social phenomena 'biosociology.' "Biology on social foundations."
>
>         4)  human evolutionism: human sociology as a social extension of
the
> once exclusively biological Darwinistic process of 'selection', survival
of
> the fittest 'activities.' From one side, can be interpreted as 'might is
> right' arguments, though less on the individual sense of Social Darwinism
> and more on the level of behaviors, beliefs, etc. Weber's ideal types of
> religion; religious studies of Frazer 'documenting progression' from
animism
> to monotheism, typically using other presently contemporaneous peoples
> framed as examples of 'human past'; early anthropology has this cast; from
> excerpts of Norbert Elias's last work (The Symbol Theory, 1990) I assume
> that he held this view of human society moving to a different level of
> structure in an evolutionary process, into symbols and meanings from a
once
> 'pure' biology.  On the human symbolic side, there is much writing done on
> these suppositions in a rhetorical and interpretive way--organizing the
> expansion of the use of language and social interactions as an
evolutionary
> process akin to biological evolutionary processes. It seems to be built on
> mostly analogy instead of empirical data, in my view.  On the biological
> side, Fox (1970s anthropologist) makes the arguments for sociology as a
> conditioned outcome of special biological qualities of humans. Others have
> written about the importance of the curious phenomenon of puberty as a
> biological basis (actually I feel it is the other way around, sociological
> expansion biologically pressuring the 'slack' of puberty into the social
> world, social maintenance in the face of the individual life cycle of
birth
> and death, etc.);
>         Though it is slightly different and poses the inverse causal
model,
> I would place theories of  genes 'using' social structures to breed
> selfishly (The Selfish Gene) in this category as well, though it should
> likely go in its own category as an 'inverted human evolutionism, as
> sociological elaboration is interpreted as 'pressured' by 'genetic
desires'
> for expansion.
>
>         5) interrelational biosociology: wider set of empirical phenomena
> than #3, and carries #2 into the realm of genetics, environment AND
> structural interaction between different organs: typically
interdisciplinary
> study of posing a biologically conditioned social world; example,
> 'paleopsychology' (study of the historical expansion of psychic processes
> with changes in brain structure; biochemistry, studies in human evolution,
> circadian and other bodily rhythms 'enforcing' particular sleep cycles,
> etc--although I have seen recent research to the contrary); a more tactile
> and structural 'tone' than #2's abstract genetic prescriptions for
behavior,
> though it has a causal theory interest similar to the causal one in
> biological determinism.
>
>         6) sociological  'determinism:' biology/sociology a false
dichotomy,
> an historical study of widening sense of sociological influences on
> biological reification of human behavior (with of course individual
> biological 'effects'); includes biosociology and human evolutionism as
> defined above, incorporates theorization in terms of feedback mechanisms
> between individual biology and group sociology for individual and group
> outcomes, instead of employing causal models.     (me)   ;-)
>
>         There are of course different groups vying for where different
> phenomena 'goes' (like schizophrenia and manic-depressiveness).
>         As an observation about social science information in general: by
> posing a sense of objective structures to social phenomena, social science
> will likely always be a contentious (and politically hegemonic) process of
> knowledge formation. I'm for the widest and most inclusive hegemony we can
> stand. ;-)
>         I suppose it could be eventually 'shown' through particularly
snazzy
> methodologies that there are biological causal effects for certain social
> phenomena. However, always expect to be contradicted.  ;-)
>
>
>         I feel that Alan's point about epochs of rapid change being
related
> to social longing for simple (and stable) answers to rationalize/justify
the
> social world out of human hands is very accurate.
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Mark Whitaker
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
>