Re: "sociobiology" citation

WSN,

A person's health is determined by social position. Inequality and
injustice impact people's life-chances. Societal responses stigmatize
people with idiosyncratic physical characteristics--determined to be
idiosyncratic because they deviate from socially defined norms. Social
structures inhibit the personal development of such individuals by
privileging other individuals determined to fit with the norm and failing
to structure life in an inclusive way.

But this is not what we understand by the term sociobiology. Indeed,
demonstrating the relevance of social forces in determining the physical
well-being of persons strengthens sociological interpretations of human
reality. Sociobiology is the claim that social systems and their features,
including inequality, racism, sexism, and hierarchical arrangements, are
the result of biological differences. That some groups have created a
system that codes individuals on the basis of their skin color has nothing
to do with biology. People are not determined by their genes to label and
hate and destroy other people.

To say that racism is the expression of an inherited adaptive response,
for example, "territorial imperative," is to articulate a component of
racist ideology. To say that the patriarchy is part of the genetic makeup
of the species is sexist ideology. There is no truth to these claims,
rather they are ideas and structures designed to secure the privilege of
some groups over other groups. This is what lies at the heart of
sociobiology: it is an intellectual attempt to legitimate inequality and
injustice.

Andy Austin