At 08:40 PM 5/28/97 -0700, Jim wrote: >I wouldn't reject the role of all biology/genetics/evolution in explaining >human behavior. However, I would follow Marvin Harris, the anthropological >padrone primero of "cultural materialism," ... >[..] >BTW, according to Michael Albert, he has been criticized by leftists for >paying attention to the genetic basis of human behavior. So maybe Noam >Chomsky has been criticized for speculating about the biological basis of >ideas of justice. Ditto Witjek's very nice post on the problems with using biology and genetics in explaining social behavior. I don't have a problem if Chomsky wants to toss off wild flights of speculative fantasy about biology and justice--or, for that matter, biology and language--so long as he's very clear that whatever his claims are, they aren't in the realm of science. Also, as someone who's been involved in the disability rights movement for a long time, I think it's important to remember just how clueless we are when it comes to human biology, particularly in the neuro area. My brother has autism and mental retardation, and throughout his life we've been amazed at seemingly implacable limits turn out to be a lot more complicated than they first appeared. For example, when the technique of facilitated communication--communicating by pointing on letters on a board rather than by speaking--was discovered a few years ago, it radically changed our understanding of his disability. People like my brother weren't supposed to be self-reflexive, particularly about their emotions. And yet it turned out that although he couldn't control his vocal cords enough to speak, he could express a remarkably high level of self-reflexivity when pointing his finger at a keyboard (an act involving a very different set of neuro+muscular controls). It didn't mean that his limitations went away--far from it--but it did remind us of a lesson we'd learned again and again throughout my brother's life: that "autism" and "mental retardation" were very complex biological/psychological phenomena that no one really understood. So if we don't understand the neurophysiology of these much simpler phenomena, it's pretty hard to take seriously Chomsky's talk about genes and justice. Anders Schneiderman Progressive Communications
