Defenders of the Truth. By Ullica Segerstrale Oxford University Press.493pgs.
[This post is dedicated to all my teachers. They know who they are. I
hope I haven't let them down.]
This lengthy book attempts an exhaustive discussion both
biological and sociological of the "sociobiology controversy" that
erupted in the 1970's on university campuses and eventually trickled
down to the popular media. The book originated as a Phd thesis and
offers yet another insiders look into the nastiness of academic
politics. As aforementioned, the book explains on two levels, the first
tries to show why colleagues in the same department ended up on opposing
sides in fierce controversy. The second attempts to explain the actual
scientific and philosophical differences between the sociobiologists and
the Marxists. The book fails on both levels. The sociology is little
more than conspiracy theory and gossip of the type that peppers the
world's tabloids. The science is skewered towards the sociobiologists
and as explanation of their views it isn't very good either. There is
very little flesh on the large bones of this book.
The cast of characters includes the arch-villains Richard
Lewontin, Stephen Chorover and Stephen Rose and their thugs the Society
for the Study of Sociobiology for the People. Good guys are E.O. Wilson,
Richard Levins, Richard Dawkins, and Sal Luria. Given the amount of time
and passion she puts into discussing Wilson, it seems Segerstrale's main
goal is to rescue his political and professional reputation from the
heavy charges laid against him and the caricatures of his views viz.
That he is a hired gun for the capitalist class and worse.
Interestingly, in a book of this length detailing a debate
between neo-darwinians and marxists, the word "capitalism" does not
appear until page 344. For ,after all, that is mostly what Marxism is, a
theory of capitalism with biology being a part of that theory. The major
works of the Marxists like Dialectical Biologist are only mentioned in
passing. Marx and Engels are not even in the bibliography. No sustained
examination or even exegesis of these books is given. In discussing the
critics of Sociobiology, Segerstrale relies on Lewontin et al.'s book
reviews of Dawkins and Wilson which appear in the New York Review of
Books and Times Literary Supplement and other like publications.
Furthermore, much of Segerstrale's information comes from personal
interviews with the participants in the debate, which is kind of
interesting.
Segerstrale is correct, I think, that the debate centers around
methodology, the sociobiologists (SBs hereafter) subscribing to a
reductionist methodological individualism (with the exception of Wilson
who is closer to Levins than Dawkins. Wilson calls Levins and
,begrudgingly, Lewontin geniuses.) with the critics favoring a more
holistic, ecological approach. Segerstrale sets up the debate as one
between the "weeders" who only criticise others views and the "planters"
who are constantly being creative. This is unfair to the "weeders" since
the "planter" paradigm is the dominant one in professional science and
one must work within it to get hired and advance in one's profession.
Segerstrale misses the main point of the SB debate though, namely,
that method and content like genes, organism and environment are
inseparable. Segerstrale lets the cat out of the bag on page 355
"Neo-classical economists typically use models of self-interest,
optimization, strategies and the like – and these are exactly the models
that underlie much of sociobiological reasoning too". This would only be
natural since Darwin developed his idea of natural selection after
reading Parson Malthus. So in the end these is really nothing new in the
sociobiology debate, it is mostly contained in Marx's polemics against
the classical economists scattered throughout his writings. . If SB is
the same as neo-classical economics then it shares all of its faults. I
will not supply a list here . Darwin applied the invisible hand
explanation of the economy to nature with Marx finding a kind of cruel
irony in this before comparing methodological individualism to
Robinson Crusoe on his island ( i.e. the economy is a bunch of Robinson
Crusoe's maximizing their utility).
Marx in Chapter 1 of Capital criticized what he called
"fetishism" in economics where relations between people appear as
relations between things. The critics of SB can be seen as continuing in
the tradition extending Marx's criticisms and methodology into biology.
What appears as relations between genes is really relations between
genes, organism and environment as genes cannot replicate by themselves,
they need to be embedded in cellular matter which in turn must be
embedded in an organism which in turn must be embedded in an
environment. These relations contain both positive and negative
feedback mechanisms between each other as well as other highly complex
relationships. Simply, the SB's are continuing in the Anglo-American
tradition of economic individualism while the critics come out of the
more holistic, Continental approach of Hegel, Marx, Dobzhansky and Mayr.
As in most debates, the sociobiological debate comes down to
philosophy and in this case, differing philosophies of science. The
sociobiologists hold what I'll call a naive philosophy of science (what
Philip Kitcher calls ‘Legend'). Science and its methodology work in
isolation, with progressive convergence on truth. By contrast, the
critics see science as part of an integrated, total world view. For
example, here is Maynard Smith discussing Dawkins:
"when he (Dawkins) is thinking about evolution, he is only interested in
differences that are genetic...if two animals differ for environmental
reasons, the differences may affect their chances of survival, but it
will not affect the nature of the children and hence will have no
evolutionary consequence." (Games, Sex and Evolution p33).
On this account, genes operate in a vacuum, but as stated above,
this is impossible since genes cannot reproduce by themselves. Dawkins
then is recapitulating the nature/nurture fallacy that the critics
(including Wilson) argue so passionately against This fallacy leads to
a dead end.
On the sociological level, Segerstrale is interested in why the
debate occurred and what motivated the participants. She accepts Sal
Luria's view (ch 12) that critiquing sociobiology diverted valuable time
and energy away from serious scientific research. If researchers had
simply left Sociobiology alone, it would have disappeared without a
trace and would have had no effect on public politics. Bringing it out
into public did more harm than good. Segerstrale also accepts Wilson's
view that the critics received no scientific recognition for this work
(p295). Why ,then, did they do it? Segerstrale comes up with the
cleverest part of the book, the late Pierre Bourdieu's conception of
"moral capital". The critics wanted "moral capital" to help with their
personal struggles in academe for greater economic rewards and public
recognition as staunch anti-racists and egalitarians. If this is true it
is an attack on personal motives and has no relevance to the truth of
the critics views. This is also an old conservative tactic of attacking
the motives of left wing intellectuals. Left and especially Marxist
intellectuals are only interested in personal power and use ideology to
achieve that end. I personally find it hard to believe that one could
gain moral capital by adopting a Marxist stance since Marxists are a
tiny minority in academia and public life and are generally disliked for
their views. It would seem to me to be the other way around, moral
capital would come from embracing pro-capitalist positions. Moreover,
many of the participants in the debate were already at the top of the
professions in their respective countries and had little to gain,
academically, by participating in the debate.
Segerstrale's book is good if you are interested in academic
gossip not if you are interested in sociology and science.
Sam Pawlett (failed philosopher, now on the dole)
For those who care ,yes, this is me unfortunately. No, I don't like
Yanni and yes I coulda been a somebody.
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