Comment on Human All Too Human by Jan Arnold

Jan Arnold — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 03:40:23 +0000

MOI – Blush! You are too kind. I appreciate your commentary on the Beeryblog and find it stimulating. Be careful with the superlatives, though – you might swell my head to the point that I will lose all of my notoriously saintly humility.

Comment on Human All Too Human by Moi

Moi — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 03:14:38 +0000

I swear, Mr. Jan – you are one of the smartest and wisest people I’ve come across in a long time. Thank you for helping me to finally understand what the BEEP is going on!!!

Comment on Response to Gary Greenberg in The Nation by jarnold1

jarnold1 — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:27:21 +0000

Hi Chester – Thanks for taking the time to answer my post. I agree that Brooks is a bit of a dabbler, but I have been reading his NYT columns on this topic for a while. They are reasonably informed and respectful of the science itself. I have no such appraisal of Greenberg, who not once actually described or showed any working knowledge of the science itself. His contemptuous dismissal of such important findings as those on empathy, the function of oxytocin, and especially the implications of mirror neurons for understanding human attachment and capacity for sophisticated social interaction is nothing short of fatuous and sophomoric. It adds nothing to the debate (if there really is a legitimate one in this case, which I doubt). This is my main problem with the article. As a University of Chicago graduate (MA) in cognitive and developmental science myself and a Ph.D. student in psychology at another school, I am in fact highly interested in and somewhat knowledgeable of the very science Brooks admires. This interest of his is not typical of his cohorts, many of whom are science deniers, including global warming, climate change and of course evolution, which is foundational to the science that Brooks is describing. As a conservative, Brooks attempts to bridge the unbridgeable gap between intellectual discourse and the sheer vacuity of Republican political dogma. I once commented to one of his posts, pointing out how absurd his attempts were to study and apply real knowledge of the world his positions while at the same time proselytizing for the Know-Nothing party’s policies. In 2008 there was a Republican primary Presidential debate in which 3 of the participants (out of, I think, 8) raised their hands as proud deniers of evolution. In 2012 I suspect the debates would be 100% in denial of global warming and evolution, with even Romney kowtowing to the ignoranti (at least on the climate change issue). Greenberg, of whom I know nothing, reviews the book with the predictable scornful rhetoric , not of an opponent of conservatism or of Brooks (this is certainly also present, of course), but with the usual irrational Know-Nothing attitude of hard-core cultural anthropologists. Biologists have weathered the onslaught of this doctrinaire bunch over the decades, and the Nation has been a major outlet for opinion attacking the very legitimacy of considering extending evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, and neuroscience research into human social behavior. These are invariably presented as terrifying attempts to inundate the culture with a rationalization of patriarchal and racial hegemony. Never have I seen such rants presented with any cogent or knowledgeable, let alone expert, critique of the biology or neuroscience itself. As with Christian fundamentalists, to make such an effort is deemed unnecessary (and probably too difficult). There seems to be no motivation to do so, at least. This follows their claim that biology is irrelevant to human sociality. Genetics and somatic aspects of our existence have no explanatory power for inter-human behavior. The arguments have always presented sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and social neuroscience (i.e., anything that combines the word “social” with anything approaching a “hard” science) as dangerous ideologies of the racist and sexist far right. In my experience, such writing always begins with a contemptuous categorical dismissal of the legitimacy of examinations of the human condition, or explanations of human behavior (I will avoid using that particularly abhorrent “essentialist” term, human nature) that goes beyond the tradition of cultural anthropology, with its emphasis on universally variable cultural shaping. According to this perspective, the idea of human universals is just an ineluctable prelude to eugenics. As such, it must be destroyed, nipped in the bud. The usual villains, E.O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and others are paraded out as objects of contempt to immediately set the serious tone of just how dangerous such thinking is. The old accusations of “just-so stories” are used in the attempt to debunk the scientific validity of the entire sociobiological project. The attacks have from the beginning in the 1960s much more resembled a political diatribe rather than a rigorous scientific critique. It appears that applying biological science and hypothesizing possible adaptive behaviors to a member of the primate class other than the great apes and the various monkeys and lemurs can only be the actions of racists and sexists. So would making behavioral comparisons between the species. And so the critiques continue, replete with subliminal dualistic assumptions of the pure (one might say, reductive) dualism of human being. Ironically, the sociobiologists require the social nature of all humanity as an axiom, and cultures are seen as necessary adaptive consequences of the viability of the species (of course the word “species” is far too rigid a term to have any legitimacy for sociological discourse). In the course of my readings and schooling, I have been inundated with the ideology of cultural anthropology and have heard the same clichéd arguments and undisguised contempt for a biology/social science convergence in understanding the “humanness” of human beings. In Greenberg, that subtext is far more disturbing than any criticism of Brooks, who I find more a well-meaning patrician sophist than an utter buffoon, as Greenberg portrays him. Again, I give Brooks credit for taking the time and effort to understand the science and its possibilities, despite his unsophisticated understanding of it. He knows more about it than people like Greenberg seem to. Brook’s trying to find family values in sociobiology is a total farce. If anything, we are serial polygamists with short-term family interests and like any other animal the urge to propagate our genes as far and wide as possible is within us. Newt Gingrich acts like a human being; his problem is his hypocrisy in trying to explain his humanity to the benighted denizens of Christianity. And hypocrisy is a good political target that his opponents should attack him for. Any sociobiologist worth his or her salt knows that a lack of trustability is a deep deficit in overall viability. To be fair, there are a few distinguished biologists who strongly dissent with the sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists, most notably Richard Lewontin and the late Steven Jay Gould. They are both left-wingers who advertise their political biases (Lewontin wrote a book called “The Dialectical Biologist” an exposition of “Marxist” biology. This approaches the kind of scientific philosophy that allows for Creationism). These two are nevertheless important researchers who have enriched the science of biology and paleontology. They have not managed to hold back the enormous outpouring of research in sociobiological fields in the last four decades. The science is robust and has enriched our knowledge of who we are. I go with the reasonable notion that there is probably something to it; let’s see what we can learn. The Nation is a mainstay of my political sanity, but its stand in some matters ideological I find disturbing. There is rarely any scientific writing and when it is, it is inevitably colored by a leftist ideological bias. In this case, making a political point on matters of science strikes me as unhelpful. Thanks again for your reply and feel free to continue the dialogue.

Comment on Response to Gary Greenberg in The Nation by chester baran

chester baran — Tue, 24 May 2011 23:35:52 +0000

i think you are over reacting. brooks has no credentials in neuroscience other than dabbling in its literature. greenberg regards brooks’ popularization of this sketchy knowledge of the science as self serving and irresponsible and deserving of scorn.

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