John Kulig wrote: ...... > Unfortunately, I am not familiar with Stephen Rose's writings. Whatever > his criticisms, they must be squared with the fundamental fact that > intelligence test scores (specifically, the 'g' component, not the stuff > we memorize in school for the tests) correlates strongly with real-world > success across a broad spectrum. Sorry if I repeated things earlier in > the history of this thread.
Rose is an eminent researcher into the biochemistry of memory, but also writes on more general subjects relating to science and society. Some idea of his basic position can be seen from Richard Dawkins’s tongue-in-cheek opening paragraphs (immediately below) in his review of *Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature* (1985) by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin and R.C. Lewontin (quotations in inverted commas are from the book under review): Those of us with time to concentrate on our historic mission to exploit workers and oppress minorities have a great need to “legitimate” our nefarious activities. The first legitimator we came up with was religion, which has worked pretty well through most of history but, “the static world of social relations legitimated by God reflected, and was reflected by, the dominant view of the natural world as itself static”. Latterly there has been an increasing need for a new legitimator. So we developed one: Science: “The consequence was to change finally the form of the legitimating ideology of bourgeois society. No longer able to rely upon the myth of a deity ... the dominant class dethroned God and replaced him with science ... If anything this new legitimator of the social order was more formidable than the one it replaced ...Science is the ultimate legitimator of bourgeois ideology.” Legitimation is also the primary purpose of universities: “ . . . it is universities that have become the chief institutions for the creation of biological determinism ...Thus. universities serve as creators, propagators, and legitimators of the ideology of biological determinism. If biological determinism is a weapon in the struggle between classes, then the universities are weapons factories, and their teaching and research faculties are the engineers. designers, and production workers.” (From New Scientist, 24 January 1985) Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.human-nature.com/esterson/index.html www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=10 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
