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On Aug 8, 2010, at 7:01 AM, Shane Hopkinson <chen9692...@yahoo.com> wrote: > There are 2 reasons why leftists are suspucious of these arguments. One is > that we think they are not scientific at all - and that its bad science to > explain > social outcomes by relation to the genes (for the reasons that Lewontin > explains). > > Also there is a LONG history of using these 'scientific' arguments to explain > social > inequalities I totally get that point if view! I really do. But as I mentioned in a previous reply to someone, science is a tool to describe the natural world. Humans use the tool so of course it's subject to being misused just like any tool. But as much as possible, politics must not be involved with science. But, politics should be informed by science. Why do I accept climate change? It's not because it fits into my political ideology, it's because the evidence has become irrefutable. Thus, I mold my politics around this fact. When it's the other way around, you have people denying what should be undeniable (climate change, evolution, etc.) because it's inconvenient to their existing beliefs. In regards to evolutionary psychology, I don't know enough about it to form a solid opinion yet. But what I do know so far, I don't see why it's not valid. And I'm not talking about any racial difference khrahp. From what I understand about e.p., we're talking about brain structure induced behavior that established themselves since we differentiated ourselves as homo sapien, long before any racial divisions developed. As I understand it, e.p. deals with the brain that ALL of the human race shares. Regardless of the validity of e.p. or not, if, IF some aspects of human behavior CAN be explained by naturalistic means, is it appropriate to ignore that simply because it's uncomfortable or doesn't fit in one's ideology? Plus, there's a difference between IS and OUGHT. Even if science explains a human behavior as having a genetic component, what we do with that information is indeed political and ideological. We have no obligation to, say, embrace and promote and celebrate a negative finding simply because it's an objective finding. Even Darwin wrote, in reference to what he saw as a potential application of culling the "weaker" members of humanity, that as humans we have the ability and the responsibility to affect and overcome natural selection! We have the awesome capability to be charitable and to help and protect the "weaker" members of humanity. (Something anti-Darwinists conveniently forget to mention about him.) Just because there's a history of people misusing science to justify and further their unethical behavior, doesn't make the science wrong (if, that is, it actually isn't wrong) it just makes them unethical. The gun has no ethics, no ideology, no politics. It can be used for self defense, to hunt for food, to fight on the side despotism or fight on the side of defeating it. The gun, the tool, exists regardless of how we use it. Liam ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
