Doyle,I agree! you too are getting the heart of the matter..
actually, check out the articles in _Mankind Quartely_, a journal edited
by Roger Pearson, and its liberal co-associate JCPES. see especially the
one called _Virtues in Racism_. the man is implying that it is not racist
to say that people differ because they differ genetically. It is somewhat
treathening to see how the liberal rhetoric of "individual differences"
relies on geneticist arguments to justify a morality of ethics of
difference! another one published by a Washington policy analyst "boldly"
says that affirmative action has erased our differences, and created a
society of equals and conformity. See how equality is equated
there with "confirmity and sameness" and genetics is praised for
celebrating difference. Basically, you will find this as an interesting
example on post-modern version of right wing and neo-liberalism, which
approves my claim that socio-biology is inherently a reactionary science.
Mine
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2000 11:02:54 -0700
From: Doyle Saylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:17884] Re: genome news (fwd)
Greetings Economists,
JKS writes in reply to Mines,
JKS,
No it's not. It would be racist (and genetically illiterate, for the most
part) to say that some groups of people are inferior to another because of
their genes, but it is not racist to say, for example, that Black people are
different in the color of their skin from whites in large part because of
their genes. That is just true. Genes are causally efficaous; they do
account for some of the variation in differences between groups and
individuals, and anyone who denies that has no idea what he is talking
about.
Doyle
The theory of sociobiology is that genes control behavior. In other words
any social group are the way they are because of their genes. Is that true?
Well you say above that is not true (falsifiable in the traditional sense of
the words in science).
Let's look at Mine's comment again,
Mine
<< the socio-biological claim that
people differ because they differ genetically is called RACISM, >>
Doyle
JKS says anyone who claims sociobiology does not assert control over the
human social behavior has no idea what he is talking about. And I have no
idea from JKS what exactly makes him different from Sociobiology. If I
pick up a book on evolutionary psychology is that not the whole thrust of
their theory? See "The Adapted Mind, Evolutionary Psychology and the
Generation of Culture", Jerome H. Barkow Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Oxford
University Press, 1992.
In replying to M. Forstater, JKS writes,
JKS
Don't assume any such thing. Of course I am aware of the social contruction
of race, and I don't uncritically assume anything. I also don't need to do
the dance every time I use a loaded word,a t least, I hope, in this
context.
Among people to whom the social construction of race might bea new thought,
I'd emphasize it. Here, I might have hoped that I could take it for granted.
How very foolish of me.
I might have said, I briefly contemplated it, that malinin content avrirs
with geographic origin; that genetics explains why people from subSaharan
Africa have darker skins, because of higher melanin content, on average,
than
people fron Northern Europe. But it is tiresome, particularly when one is
talking about race, to pretend that one is not. Political correctness is
very
boring.
Doyle
Your comments do not explain "black" skin, because you don't understand
genetics or you wouldn't so loosely assert something about black skins.
When groups are relatively isolated from each other there are directions to
that in changes arising or falling in a pool in relation to other pools
otherwise related to the isolate, selection may make dark skin arise, and it
may not according to a climate, because the source of change is contingent.
Color vision in primates is interesting in that sense. But not in the crude
way you articulate your views. That is why arguments such as yours fade
away in time in the sciences because they are not sufficiently accurate and
practical in understanding reality. In current times when all the human
community intermarries there is not going to be a geographic origin to skin
color and your point seems just plain Eurocentric to others. Which comes
first, light or dark in skin? What about a Baboon's blue ass, why aren't
humans blue skinned, since they are our relatives too. And your point is
just how you insert yourself into this argument when you have no sense
what
so ever that Mine's outrage is justified and important about the re-rise of
socio-biology under the name evolutionary psychology. Your remarks are as
sloppy as you accuse Mine of being.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor
