Political from inception, concepts of “man the hunter” and “the killer ape” are no less political in conclusion and application. They are also dishonest, speculative and often untrue. But even if “man” (never “woman”) were a hunting animal during the dawning years of our lineage, even if this hunting lifestyle had...
Tag - biological determinism
In an unequal set of economic relations as exist within American industry, scientists must work extremely hard to see that on matters of health all sides are considered equally. This means they will have to forge links with workers and progressive unions who are struggling over occupational health issues. They will...
Among almost 207,500 science and engineering Ph.D.s in this country, 93.4 percent are white and 92.1 percent are male. In the biological sciences, women hold approximately 11 percent of the doctorates. This has a profound effect on science and on what we perceive as the truth about ourselves as male or female human...
As most readers of Science for the People are aware, speculations about the evolutionary and genetic bases of human behavior have stirred controversy since the publication of E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis in 1975.
1. The Rise of Social Darwinism
Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.
Zmarzlik, "Social Darwinism in Germany, Seen as an Historical Problem," Chap. 10 in Republic to Reich: The Making of the Nazi Revolution, (ed.) H. Holborn, Vintage Books; 1973, pp. 435-474.
In late 1973, people in the Boston area who heard about our group began to give us some details about a study being conducted at the Boston Hospital for Women. In this study the researchers were screening all newborn males for the XYY karyotype and then following the XYY children to detect any “psychopathology” =...
Class societies must provide a system of police in order to maintain themselves. Historically such a system has had a dual basis, physical and ideological. The development of ideological weaponry is accomplished largely through the work of intellectuals. To counteract the ideological arsenal has been, and still is, an...
The struggle between those who possess social power and those who do not, between "freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed" is a war fought with many and varied weapons. Of highest importance are ideas, weapons in an ideological warfare by...
Science for Humane Survival is in its eighth consecutive year at the University of Massachusetts' Boston Campus. Controversial from the start, it continues to trigger allergic reactions from various sensitized faculty members whenever it comes up for consideration at one or another college governance meetings...
After over almost a year's reflection and review and after analyzing the reaction to the new wave of books this fall on sociobiology, particularly E.O. Wilson's On Human Nature, the Sociobiology Study group of the Boston Chapter of Science for the People has decided on a new course of action. We find there is a...