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 - sociobiology
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...
By filtering the controversy about genes-and-gender research so that only one side gets through, popular magazine writers serve to shore up the status quo. In this way, mass circulation magazine coverage of genes-and-gender theory affects public policy. The notion of the "different natures" of men and women is...
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.
Dear Dr. Wilson: I am a graduate student in anthropology at New York University. I purchased a copy of your text, Sociobiology, because I was anxious to study Homo sapiens from the standpoint of so eminent a scientist as yourself. This is my problem. Although I scored 760 in the verbal portion of the graduate record...
The idea that human behavior is genetically controlled is called “biological determinism.” Throughout history this ideology has been used as a justification for oppression. Women and minorities were claimed to be inferior because of biological differences that could not be changed. There has been a resurgence of this...
In the past ten years, a succession of highly publicized scientific works have purported to demonstrate that women's subordinate position in our society is due, in good part, to innate (genetic) differences between males and females, and not to external factors as claimed by the women's movement. These theories are...
During the 1960's—a time of great social unrest, questioning of basic American institutions, and a growing interest in socialism as an alternative—there appeared a spate of books on the theme that humans are only another species of ape. Konrad Lorenz, Robert Ardrey, Desmond Morris, Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox, as well...
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...