I thought this was amusing given the recent flare ups about academacism. This criticism( by one of the finest philosophers in the business) can be extended to much of what goes on in academic economics. from *Vaulting Ambition. Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature* by Philip Kitcher. MIT. 1985. " Genes, Mind and Culture is am extreme example of a certain type of work. Complex mathematics is employed to cover up very simple--often simplistic-- ideas. In many instances besides ones on which I have focused, Lumsden (C) and Wilson (E.O.) occupy themselves by applying symbolism of mind-numbing obscurity to the solution of unimportant problems. For example, one appendix investigates the possibility of a computer program for modeling the initiation of young males among Warao: the initiation involves smoking hallucinogens and reporting dream experiences. In another appendix the authors, obsessed with the desire to demolish the notion that human beings are tabulae rasae, compute the waiting time for departure from the state of indifference. What is irritating, and occasionally amusing, about these uses of mathematics is that they serve to disguise poverty of thought... "Lewontin has characterized _Genes, Mind and Culture_ as containing "no genes, no mind and no culture". The charge sounds flippant ut we have found it to be apt. There are no genes: for the examples studied in detail, the examples of "gene" -culture translation, are independent of the genetic bases of our preferences, and the authors have no other new information to offer about the genetics of human behavior. There is no mind: for, as we have seen, psychological insights about human decision making play no role in the theory. There is no culture: for Lumsden and Wilson do not even *see* the problem of identifying the social institutions in their preferred idiom, much less solve it. So indeed there are no genes, no mind and no culture. But there are lots of equations." p 393-4. sam Pawlett
