On 5/30/07, sartesian wrote:
Nothing new there. Used to be called social darwinism, then
socio-biology; now social molecular biology.
Same old, same old eugenics. Pseudo-science.
"Eugenics" refers to selective breeding of humans (as in the US in the
1920s & 1930s, or in Nazi Germany).
I don't think so. "Social Darwinism" is nothing but old fashioned
_laissez faire_ with a secular version of the old Calvinist twist
("we're better because we're winners").
Sociobiology represents a failed (and silly) effort to explain human
social behavior by analogies with bees and other social creatures.
"Social molecular biology" isn't really what the cited article is
about. The article simply says that are brains are "wired" so that we
get pleasure from empathetic behavior. Empathy isn't morality: my
buddy and I can feel really empathetic with each other at the same
time that we torture someone. (In the classic Milgram experiment, the
subject empathizes with an authority figure and follows orders to
torture a third person.) Morality, by its very nature, is social.
The first three are disgusting ideologies, while the fourth seems a
potential blow against the commonly-accepted view that people are
simply greedy bastards who look out only for themselves.
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your
own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
