From: L-Soft list server at St. John's University (1.8c) To: Ian Pitchford Subject: File: "SCI-CULT LOG9808" Date: Saturday, September 26, 1998 11:26 PM ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 14:03:19 EDT Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Valdusek@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Joseph Needham Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-07-26 01:04:31 EDT, you write: > Speak memory! Is there anyone out there with some > "Needham stories" worthy of "himself"? > > \brad mccormick > The one time I heard Joseph Needham speak was at MIT in the 1980's. He must have been in his eighties, but he looked about fifty. At one point the slide projector he was using in his lecture broke down. The staff went looking for a lightbulb, and Needham remarked that it was surprising that in the world's center of electrical engineering they couldn't change a lightbulb. While we were waiting, he decided to continue his lecture in the dark and suggested to us in the audience that we imagine the slides. Not a great anecdote, but a true one. Val Dusek ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 14:08:12 -0400 Reply-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Organization: AbiCo. Subject: Re: Joseph Needham X-cc: Valdusek@AOL.COM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Valdusek@AOL.COM wrote: > > In a message dated 98-07-26 01:04:31 EDT, you write: > > > Speak memory! Is there anyone out there with some > > "Needham stories" worthy of "himself"? > > > > \brad mccormick > > > The one time I heard Joseph Needham speak was at MIT in the 1980's. He must > have been in his eighties, but he looked about fifty. At one point the slide > projector he was using in his lecture broke down. The staff went looking for > a lightbulb, and Needham remarked that it was surprising that in the world's > center of electrical engineering they couldn't change a lightbulb. While we > were waiting, he decided to continue his lecture in the dark and suggested to > us in the audience that we imagine the slides. Not a great anecdote, but a > true one. > > Val Dusek And certainly a story which in no way *diminishes* my image of a man I much wish I had had the opportunity to know. \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 08:20:01 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: articles on Darwinian discourse at Science-as-Culture web site X-To: darwin-and-darwinism@sheffield.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit The following articles by Julio Muņoz-Rubio have been placed on the Science-as-Culture web site: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/rmy/indsac.html 'Political Economy at Nature. The Ideological Background of Darwinian Discourse' 'On Darwinian Discourse: Anthropologization of Nature in the Naturalization of Man' comments/discussion very welcome Best, Bob Young __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837. Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/index.html Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/ 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 21:35:24 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Hank Bromley Subject: Education/Technology/Power book MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Brief announcement: a book I co-edited, _Education/Technology/Power: Educational Computing as a Social Practice_ (SUNY Press), is now available. Those wishing more info may contact me or visit this web site: http://www.gse.buffalo.edu/fas/bromley/etp/ Thanks. -- Hank Bromley hbromley@acsu.buffalo.edu (sci-cult subscriber and occasional poster) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 16:17:27 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Fwd: Hazen Prize Nominations needed! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >To expand interaction between professional historians and pre-University >educators, the History of Science Society--among other things--has launched >the HAZEN PRIZE for outstanding contributions to teaching the history of >science. > >This is the first year of the award, which will be delivered at the HSS >annual meeting in October 1998. The Prize committee has been looking for >nominations and is setting a specially delayed deadline of mid-August. >Those interested in making a nomination should contact: > >Prof Rich Kremer, Hazen Prize Subcommittee (Richard.L.Kremer@dartmouth.edu) > >URGENTLY. He can provide information about nomination procedures. > >The description of the prize is below: > >>Description of the Joseph H. Hazen Education Prize >> >>"The prize is awarded in recognition of outstanding contributions to the >teaching of History of Science. Educational activities recognized by the >award are to be construed in the broadest sense and should include but not >be limited to the following: classroom teaching (K-12, undergraduate, >graduate or extended eductation), mentoring of young scholars, museum work, >journalism, organization and administration of educational programs, >educational research, innovation in the methodology of instruction, >preparation of pedagogical materials, or public outreach through non-print >media." >> >>The award is accompanied by a cash prize of $1000. >> ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 15:15:23 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: lists of lists: how to find email forums on any topic X-To: psa-public-sphere@sheffield.ac.uk, hraj@maelstrom.stjohns.edu, psychoanalytic-studies@sheffield.ac.uk, darwin-and-darwinism@sheffield.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" How to find mailing lists/email forums on various topics. There are many ways. The easiest is Liszt, a search engine whiich classifies over 80000 lists http://www.liszt.com/ Here are other responses to a query from someone about finding lists http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html/ Will let you do various things like search for keywords in all public Listserv lists. Here are two URLs for lists of lists. The first is a good site for searching for lists and the second is a pretty good list of lists. http://booster.u.washington.edu/AcademicServices/Library/newslists.html http://www.grohol.com/mail.htm In an effort to be helpful: Without spaces at each end of a link it won't work I've been told, and I've certainly found that to be true in my experience, however one can always cut and paste to get around that but this one also needs to have the last slash (/) deleted from the link to get it to work. List of children's disability lists: http://www.comeunity.com/disability/speclists.html List of adoption lists: http://www.comeunity.com/adoption/listservs.html These include applicable St Johns lists. Autism/PDD is included in the children's lists. Also large lists of lists: AOL's Mailing List Directory http://ifrit.web.aol.com/mld/production Well organized search, open to non AOL members CataList, the Catalog of Listserv Lists http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html A large database but only includes lists using Listserv software Liszt Directory of Email Discussion Groups http://www.liszt.com Comprehensive listing, based on websites Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists http://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml Easy to search, one of the first list databases. __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837. Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/index.html Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/ 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1998 20:40:42 +0100 Reply-To: Ian Pitchford Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology X-To: darwin-darwinism@sheffield.ac.uk MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: David Sloan Wilson Date: Thursday, August 13, 1998 9:27 PM My colleague and coauthor of Unto Others, Elliott Sober, recently organized a symposium on evolutionary psychology at the cognitive psychology meetings in Madison, Wisconsin. Participants included Frank Sulloway and Gerd Gigerenzer. I thought that Elliott's introductory remarks might be of interest to this group. He is not on this list but can be reached for private correspondence by the e-mail address below. David Sloan Wilson email: dwilson@binghamton.edu __________________________ Evolutionary Psychology -- A Manifesto Elliott Sober Philosophy Department University of Wisconsin, Madison 53706 ersober@facstaff.wisc.edu August 3, 1998 In the history of science, scientists sometimes have abandoned a research program because they have systematically explored its basic tenets without making any progress in solving problems. Perhaps phrenology was abandoned for this type of reason. One of the basic tenets was that different bumps on the head are associated with different psychological attributes. The attempt to figure out which bumps go with which traits never got very far. Eventually, scientists gave up on this program, and rightly so. However, there is another pattern in the history of science. In this second type of case, a research program is abandoned without its basic tenets being much explored at all. I am concerned that this may be the fate that awaits the research program of evolutionary psychology. Books that popularize evolutionary psychology give the impression that it is booming. But insiders know that only a handful of individuals are doing research of this sort. A look at the program of the present conference confirms this. There is a great deal of hostility towards evolutionary psychology in cognitive science. My worry is that this hostility will kill this research program before enough people spend enough time exploring how productive it can be. I do not associate evolutionary psychology with a specific set of doctrines. Research programs are not the same as the specific theories that are developed within a research program. Cosmides and Tooby are the most prominent workers in evolutionary psychology, but their claims do not define what the field is. Evolutionary psychologists may debate hypotheses of modularity; they may be skeptical about various adaptationist hypotheses. What they are committed to is the fruitfulness of exploring the idea that the mind is the product of evolution. Aside from creationists, I doubt that there are many people who doubt that the mind evolved. However, there is a great deal of skepticism with respect to a different claim -- that asking evolutionary questions will elicit illuminating answers. With respect to the question of whether there is a payoff to be had here, I suggest a simple answer: the only way to find out is to try. No argument can show a priori that evolutionary inquiry will be fruitless, nor can any show that it must succeed. The fact that the mind has evolved says nothing about whether present day science is in a position to develop this idea in interesting ways. To further defend evolutionary psychology against premature burial, I want to present four theses. I'd call these "truisms" instead of theses, except for the fact that they seem not to be obvious to workers in cognitive science. The first is this: Proximate and ultimate explanations are not in conflict. Mayr, Tinbergen, and others have made this point repeatedly and it is by now entirely standard. If you ask "Why do sunflowers turn towards the sunlight?" your question may be answered in two different ways. A plant physiologist may describe the proximate mechanisms inside sunflowers that make them do this. An evolutionist, on the other hand, may offer an ultimate explanation of why phototropism evolved. A (true) evolutionary account will supplement a (true) proximate account, not replace it. Evolutionary psychology will not replace the parts of cognitive science that aim to characterize proximate cognitive mechanisms. Rather, evolutionary psychology aims to explain why one set of cognitive mechanisms evolved, rather than another. My second thesis is this: There is more to evolution than natural selection. Evolutionary psychology does not have to be adaptationist. Adaptationism about this or that feature of the mind is a hypothesis to be tested, not something to be assumed true (or assumed false) a priori. As in the rest of biology, adaptationist hypotheses have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Some adaptationist models for some traits in some lineages may be well supported by data. Others may not be. As Philip Kitcher emphasized in his book on sociobiology, there is no magic bullet. The third thesis is that work on the evolution of a phenotype does not have to be postponed until the genetic and developmental features of the phenotype are understood. It is worth remembering hat Darwin got pretty far without knowing about Mendelism and that there has been lots of useful phenotypic modeling since then that has proceeded in the absence of genetic and developmental knowledge. The evolution of helping behavior -- of "altruism" in the evolutionary sense of that term -- is a good example. Of course, genetics and development are needed if we are to have a full understanding of a phenotype. But that doesn't mean that phenotypic questions can't be posed until these details are in place. The fourth thesis: Gould and Lewontin did not prove that the concept of adaptation is inherently bankrupt. What they did was criticize some existing approaches to questions about adaptation and offer a hypothesis about the evolutionary process. In the Spandrels paper, they accept the Darwinian claim that natural selection is the most important force in evolution; what they deny is that it is the only important factor. Workers in cognitive science who wonder how hypotheses in evolutionary psychology can be tested may want to look at what has happened to the issue of testability in evolutionary biology. Biologists didn't stop using the concept of adaptation after 1978, nor did they proceed just as they had before. Rather, new and more sophisticated approaches to the concept of adaptation were developed. The Gould and Lewontin article was widely interpreted as a challenge to do better, and a number of biologists tried to respond to this challenge. I see two interesting ideas at work in evolutionary biology now about testability. The first idea is to formulate adaptive hypotheses that make quantitative predictions, not just qualitative predictions. Work on sex ratio evolution provides an example. Optimality models in this area show how different mixes of males and females in a population will be optimal, depending on the pattern of mating. These models can be tested by measuring the sex ratio and measuring the pattern of mating. Although Gould and Lewontin rightly complain that it is often too easy to invent "just-so" stories, I don't think that this complaint applies to the case of sex ratio evolution. It isn't that easy to make up an explanation of why the ratio of males to females in our own species is slightly greater than unity at conception and birth and declines towards unity at reproductive age. The second strategy is to formulate adaptive hypotheses so that they cover a number of species, not just one. This permits comparative data to be used and a whole raft of new methods has been invented to deal with such data. Maybe it is easy to invent a number of adaptive hypotheses to explain why human males are larger than human females. However, it is harder to do so when the task is to explain why the degree of size dimorphism is associated with the sex ratio in mating groups in primates. Monogamous species tend to have males and females with more similar body sizes than species in which mating groups are made of more females than males. As both these examples illustrate, the way to respond to the Gould and Lewontin challenge is not to abandon the goal of testing adaptive hypotheses, but to reformulate them. If they make quantitative predictions, and if they make claims about patterns that should exist across a group of species, then it may not be so easy to invent explanations that fit the data. Elliott Sober ________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1998 14:18:53 PDT Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Edward Remler Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology X-To: Ian.Pitchford@scientist.com Content-Type: text/plain I found this posting informative. I was surprised and shocked to hear that so few people are active in Evolutionary Psychology. Is this due to peer pressure, to fear of not being promoted? But I have another question which I find even more interesting. Prof. Sober states: > What they are committed to is the >fruitfulness of exploring the idea that the mind is the product of >evolution. Aside from creationists, I doubt that there are many >people who doubt that the mind evolved. However, there is a great >deal of skepticism with respect to a different claim -- that asking >evolutionary questions will elicit illuminating answers. What can it mean to say the 'mind evolved' if that does not imply that the mind has been shaped by evolution? That its structures developed in response to evolutionary forces? I know that people say that drift can play a large role in evolutionary development, but even if this is assumed to be true to greater or lesser degree for the evolution of the brain, for some reason (obscure to me), this does not explain the virulent antipathy towards simply exploring this field.How can evolution not be a great guiding principle even if it is not the whole story? I do not think (?) that the point I am making is not already intellectually obvious to any reasonable person, yet there is this great antagonism towards this research. Of course, it is well known that there are sociopolitical undercurrents involved. My suspicion is that this antagonism is almost entirely emotional and political. Ed Remler > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1998 23:42:12 +0100 Reply-To: Ian Pitchford Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Re: Sober's article Ed Remler wrote: Of course, it is well known that there are sociopolitical undercurrents involved. My suspicion is that this antagonism is almost entirely emotional and political. ____________ In retrospect it seems peculiar that we ever conceived of the brain as an organ - surely the brain is a collection of interlinked, modular, functional systems, and these systems underpin a domain-specific mind? As Sober's co-author David Sloan Wilson wrote in 1994: 'I think that their [Cosmides and Tooby's] basic vision of the human mind as a collection of Darwinian algorithms "has the obviousness-in-retrospect of a major scientific advance"' Furthermore, the notion of an evolutionary psychology goes all the way back to the first edition of The Origin of Species (1859): (p.488) "In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history." I agree with Ed Remler that many of the reservations people have about the research program of evolutionary psychology are emotional and political, and of course some of these reservations are not unreasonable. I only hope that, one hundred and forty years after Darwin's original research proposal, these reservations wont prevent people from assessing modular hypotheses on their merits. Regards Ian Ian Pitchford Department of Psychiatry University of Sheffield, UK ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1998 20:02:14 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ted Winslow Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology In-Reply-To: <199808152119.RAA24880@comet.ccs.yorku.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ed Remler wrote: > >I do not think (?) that the point I am making is not already >intellectually obvious to any reasonable person, yet there is this great >antagonism towards this research. Of course, it is well known that there >are sociopolitical undercurrents involved. My suspicion is that this >antagonism is almost entirely emotional and political. > Is this suspicion consistent with the view that phenomena of mind such as "virulent antipathy" and "antagonism" are best explained by evolutionary psychology? Ted Winslow York University Ted Winslow E-MAIL: WINSLOW@YORKU.CA Division of Social Science VOICE: (416) 736-5054 York University FAX: (416) 736-5615 4700 Keele St. North York, Ont. CANADA M3J 1P3 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 09:10:53 +0100 Reply-To: Ian Pitchford Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ted WInslow wrote: Is this suspicion consistent with the view that phenomena of mind such as "virulent antipathy" and "antagonism" are best explained by evolutionary psychology? ____________ What are "virulent anitpathy" and "anatagonism"? Are these things functional? Do they have a particular developmental course, a dedicated neural architecture and a characteristic pattern of dissociation? Are they domain-specific? Are they human universals? If the answer to some or most of these questions is "yes" then there may be a case for further investigation. In general the basic emotions - or affect programs - are good candidates for investigation by evolutionary psychology. Paul Ekman claims to have uncovered six species-typical human affect programs: surprise, anger, fear, disgust, sadness and joy. He gives specific definitions of these which don't always overlap with the way these terms are used colloquially. It's a fascinating field, see: Brown, D.E. (1991). Human Universals. New York: McGraw Hill. Darwin, C., & Ekman, P. (1998). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [First published in Great Britain in 1872 by John Murray]. Ekman, P. (1971). Universals and cultural differences in facial expressions of emotion. In J. Cole (Ed.), Nebraska Sympsium on Motivation, Vol. 19: University of Nebraska Press. Frank, R.H. (1988). Passions within reason: the strategic role of the emotions. New York; London: W. W. Norton. Griffiths, P.E. (1997). What emotions really are. The problem of psychological categories. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press. The books by Frank and Griffiths are classics and deserve to be much better known than they are. Best wishes Ian Ian Pitchford Department of Psychiatry University of Sheffield, UK ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 10:50:15 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Forum for discussion of the work of Gregory Bateson X-To: darwin-and-darwinism@sheffield.ac.uk, psa-public-sphere@sheffield.ac.uk, psychoanalytic-studies@sheffield.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Forum for discussion of the work of Gregory Bateson The Bateson-l list is for discussion of all aspects of Gregory Bateson's ideas. Subscribers post article drafts, questions, thoughts, comments, criticisms, elaborations, replies, etc., on all facets of Bateson's work. To subscribe to Bateson-l send the command below in the body of your message: SUBscribe BATESON-L (e.g., "SUB bateson-l Margaret Mead") All commands to the LISTSERV program must be sent to "listserv@listserv.indiana.edu". To send messages to the Bateson-l list itself address them to "Bateson-l@indiana.edu". __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837. Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/index.html Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/ 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 09:50:35 -0400 Reply-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Organization: AbiCo. Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology (mind vs organ) X-To: Ian Pitchford MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ian Pitchford wrote: > > Re: Sober's article Ed Remler wrote: > > Of course, it is well known that there are sociopolitical undercurrents > involved. My suspicion is that this > antagonism is almost entirely emotional and political. > ____________ > > In retrospect it seems peculiar that we ever conceived of the brain as an > organ - surely the brain is a collection of interlinked, modular, functional > systems, and these systems underpin a domain-specific mind? As Sober's > co-author David Sloan Wilson wrote in 1994: > > 'I think that their [Cosmides and Tooby's] basic vision of the human mind as a > collection of Darwinian algorithms "has the obviousness-in-retrospect of a > major scientific advance"' [snip] Gosh! What organ *isn't* "a collection of interlinked, modular, functional systems"? Certainly a kidney or a jellyfish is at least this! But perhaps a *mind* is something else/more: A self-aware, open perspective upon Being [all that which is or ever was...] and its un-real-ized possibilities, as well as upon all other possible and actual perspectives upon Being and its un-real-ized possibilities... (in- cluding, of course, theorizing aboiut "Evolution")? With so much oppression in the world, I find it curious that so many persons in our so-called "society" work so hard to diminish not just the images they have of others ("students", "workers", "mental patients", etc.), but also the image they have of *themselves*. I guess this means Nietzsche was not *quite* on target in his hermeneutic of The Last Man? \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 15:56:18 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "F.C.Valk" Subject: Re: Forum for discussion of the work of Gregory Bateson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit listserve address is refused by server! -----Original Message----- From: Robert Maxwell Young To: SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU Date: zondag 16 augustus 1998 11:49 Subject: Forum for discussion of the work of Gregory Bateson >Forum for discussion of the work of Gregory Bateson >The Bateson-l list is for discussion of all aspects of Gregory Bateson's >ideas. Subscribers post article drafts, questions, thoughts, comments, >criticisms, elaborations, replies, etc., on all facets of Bateson's work. > >To subscribe to Bateson-l send the command below in the body of your >message: >SUBscribe BATESON-L >(e.g., "SUB bateson-l Margaret Mead") >All commands to the LISTSERV program must be sent to >"listserv@listserv.indiana.edu". >To send messages to the Bateson-l list itself address them to >"Bateson-l@indiana.edu". > > >__________________________________________ >In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young >Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk >26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 >4837. Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for >Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and >writings: >http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/index.html >Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/ > 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 16:06:53 +0100 Reply-To: Ian Pitchford Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology (mind vs organ) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Brad McCormick wrote: Gosh! What organ *isn't* "a collection of interlinked, modular, functional systems"? Certainly a kidney or a jellyfish is at least this! _____________ REPLY: Exactly, this is the point. Why exclude the brain or the mind from this general view of evolved modular systems? What theoretical framework could justify such exclusion? _____________ But perhaps a *mind* is something else/more: A self-aware, open perspective upon Being [all that which is or ever was...] and its un-real-ized possibilities, as well as upon all other possible and actual perspectives upon Being and its un-real-ized possibilities... (in- cluding, of course, theorizing aboiut "Evolution")? ____ REPLY: Everything is probably somthing more than any particular description, so what you say here is uncontroversial. The question is, very broadly, how and why do we have minds capable of learning the types of things that people routinely learn, including language and the capacity to understand behaviour in terms of mentalistic states? Both of these aforementioned abilities may depend on domain-specific systems, rather than some amorphous horizontal faculty of "general intelligence". ___ With so much oppression in the world, I find it curious that so many persons in our so-called "society" work so hard to diminish not just the images they have of others ("students", "workers", "mental patients", etc.), but also the image they have of *themselves*. I guess this means Nietzsche was not *quite* on target in his hermeneutic of The Last Man? _____ REPLY: I don't find anything diminishing about the pursuit of knowledge, whether hermeneutic or scientific. Best wishes Ian ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 12:20:44 -0400 Reply-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Organization: AbiCo. Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology (mind vs organ) X-To: Ian Pitchford MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ian Pitchford wrote: > > Brad McCormick wrote: > > Gosh! What organ *isn't* "a collection > of interlinked, modular, functional > systems"? Certainly a kidney or a jellyfish > is at least this! > > _____________ > REPLY: Exactly, this is the point. Why exclude the brain or the mind from this > general view of evolved modular systems? What theoretical framework could > justify such exclusion? The problem is at least as old as Kant's _Critique of Pure Reason_: there are objects of consciousness (or whatever Pomo-ers will tolerate that the event of awareness of [whatever] be called, *and* there is consciousness itself, which is the consciousness *of* its objects. Is this a problem or is it "obvious"? If it's obvious, can someone explain to me how the "general view of evolved modular systems" subsumes transcendental ("critical") philosophy: Kant, Husserl, et al.? Habermas explicitly argues that systems theory cannot explain communicative reason, in many places. > _____________ > > But perhaps a *mind* is something else/more: A self-aware, > open perspective upon Being [all that which is or ever > was...] and its un-real-ized possibilities, as well as > upon all other possible and actual perspectives > upon Being and its un-real-ized possibilities... (in- > cluding, of course, theorizing aboiut "Evolution")? > > ____ > REPLY: Everything is probably somthing more than any particular description, so > what you say here is uncontroversial. See above. I most sincerely hope I have said something uncontrovertial (but I don't think so -- at least until someone helps me see how it is so). > The question is, very broadly, how and > why do we have minds capable of learning the types of things that people > routinely learn, including language and the capacity to understand behaviour in > terms of mentalistic states? Both of these aforementioned abilities may depend > on domain-specific systems, rather than some amorphous horizontal faculty of > "general intelligence". I wonder about this. Do we agree or disagree? Husserlian Phenomenology is precisely the discipline of tracing back the *detailed* constitutive processes which result in each of our particular beliefs and all other aspects of our lived experience. But is *that* what you are talking about? > ___ > > With so much oppression in the world, I find it > curious that so many persons in our so-called "society" > work so hard to diminish not just the images they have > of others ("students", "workers", "mental patients", > etc.), but also the image they have of *themselves*. I > guess this means Nietzsche was not *quite* on target in > his hermeneutic of The Last Man? > > _____ > REPLY: I don't find anything diminishing about the pursuit of knowledge, > whether hermeneutic or scientific. Agreed. I think science is immensely important. Husserl called it: "mankind's first infinite task". Joseph Needham said that the 17th century Chinese recoginzed it as something genuinely new: knowledge that was valid for anyone who made the effort to understand it, rather than only being true for those raised to believe it. But Husserl also argued at length in _The Crisis of European Sciences..._ (etc.) that such "science's" self-understanding was still largely "naive", i.e., that Galilean science is in principle only partially scientific, and that a fully mature science would have as its "object" not only the universe of objects but also the event of "having [whatever] object" -- experience, consciousness-in-the-first-person-living-present, or whatever one wishes to call the event an instance of which is *you* *reading* *this*. My contention is that hermeneutics subsumes [Galilean] science in an even more consequential way than scientific knowledge subsumes hermeneutics (the latter being the elaboration of the pre-scientific experience of putting a bullet or other object through somebody's [one's own or other's] skull). This issue has fundamental implications for education, funding research, and the entire texture of daily life. The question is always to *situate* scientific praxis (and all science, including a person writing or otherwise communicating a "law of physics" is praxis) in the overall world of lived experience, which is both an "ontological" and an ethical problematic. Can we clarify respective positions on this point? > > Best wishes > > Ian Best wishes, too! \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 10:13:03 PDT Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Edward Remler Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology (mind vs organ) X-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Content-Type: text/plain Brad Mccormick wrote: >> With so much oppression in the world, I find it >> curious that so many persons in our so-called "society" >> work so hard to diminish not just the images they have >> of others ("students", "workers", "mental patients", >> etc.), apropos my point about the sociopolitical and emotional basis of so much of the animus against Evolutionary Psychology. This response illustrates that point beautifully. The Church also had good moral (as well as intellectual) concerns underlying their order to Galileo to stop publicizing his work as *the truth* (they did not require him to cease his work or to teach it as hypothesis, as their modern counterparts would do) and most reasonable people understand the justified moral concerns in this case also (Feyerabend somewhere draws the same parallel). This is such an old question, and one so worked over--that we must rework it yet again is really depressing. ----------- >But Husserl also argued at length in _The Crisis of >European Sciences..._ (etc.) that such >"science's" self-understanding was still largely >"naive", i.e., that Galilean science is in principle >only partially scientific, My response to this is that Science is as Science does. Neither Husserl nor anyone can say what Science is unless it is to say what scientists actually do. Scientists define Science. Any one can say what they believe Science *should* do. And that is generally uninteresting because the fact of the matter is that scientists would like to do everything--they are unfortunately constrained by reality. >and that a fully mature science would have >as its "object" not only the universe of objects but >also the event of "having [whatever] object" -- experience, >consciousness-in-the-first-person-living-present, or >whatever one wishes to call the event an instance of >which is *you* *reading* *this*. But science does have this as its object. Give it another thousand years and it may succeed--and even that, only if it is given the freedom you wish to deny it. Ed Remler ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 13:41:24 -0400 Reply-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology (mind vs organ) In-Reply-To: <199808161713.NAA00811@russian-caravan.cloud9.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > -----Original Message----- > From: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture > [mailto:SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU]On Behalf Of Edward > Remler > Sent: Sunday, August 16, 1998 1:13 PM > To: SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU > Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology (mind vs organ) > > > Brad Mccormick wrote: > >> With so much oppression in the world, I find it > >> curious that so many persons in our so-called "society" > >> work so hard to diminish not just the images they have > >> of others ("students", "workers", "mental patients", > >> etc.), > > apropos my point about the sociopolitical and emotional basis > of so much > of the animus against Evolutionary Psychology. This response > illustrates > that point beautifully. The Church also had good moral (as well as > intellectual) concerns underlying their order to Galileo to stop > publicizing his work as *the truth* (they did not require him to cease > his work or to teach it as hypothesis, Is this altogether true? My understanding is that, at first, they said G. could teach heliocentrism as a mathematical speculation or instrument for computation, but that later he was even forbidden to do *this*. The truth (as I understand it) is that the heliocentric hypothesis could not be defended *to the exclusion* of the Tychonic alternative until the 18th(?) century, when aberration of starlight and stellar parallax were observed (I don't know much about astronomy). So Galileo couldn't *prove* heliocentrism was true. But The Roman Catholic Church *could* have been *catholic*, and proven its greatness (and not just its command of mass times acceleration in the deployment of instruments of torture), by tolerating this obnoxious little man and his great mind. > as their modern counterparts > would do) and most reasonable people understand the justified moral > concerns in this case also (Feyerabend somewhere draws the same > parallel). This is such an old question, and one so worked > over--that we > must rework it yet again is really depressing. I'm not sure what you're referring to here??? > > ----------- > > >But Husserl also argued at length in _The Crisis of > >European Sciences..._ (etc.) that such > >"science's" self-understanding was still largely > >"naive", i.e., that Galilean science is in principle > >only partially scientific, > > > My response to this is that Science is as Science does. Ditto Bill Clinton, Ken Starr, Adolf Hitler, and every thing and living being, too. I guess the "net" is that better ideas can only have force in the real world if they can be successfully *marketed* (I'm not being merely cynical here). > Neither Husserl > nor anyone can say what Science is unless it is to say what scientists > actually do. Scientists define Science. Any one can say what they > believe Science *should* do. And that is generally > uninteresting because > the fact of the matter is that scientists would like to do > everything--they are unfortunately constrained by reality. Ah! But let us conduct a thought experiment: Let us assume a scientist could do everything (s)he wanted to. They could still noit do anything they couled not *imagine*. *Therefore* scientists need to learn the message of Husserl et al. > > >and that a fully mature science would have > >as its "object" not only the universe of objects but > >also the event of "having [whatever] object" -- experience, > >consciousness-in-the-first-person-living-present, or > >whatever one wishes to call the event an instance of > >which is *you* *reading* *this*. > > But science does have this as its object. But in what "way" does it have it as its object? As an extension of the domain of objects measurable by instruments? Or via a reflective "turn" back upon their own being and doings? > Give it another > thousand years > and it may succeed--and even that, only if it is given the freedom you > wish to deny it. > > Ed Remler Husserl wrote in the 1930s (you can find lots of other figures in the history of thought to substitute, if you're tired of hearing this one name...). I'm not interested in denying scientists freedom to pursue their studies in the directions their studies take them. I *am* interested in their seeing a wider range of things to possibly study. For, as Susanne Langer (among others...) has said: The key issue is not the answers you find to your questions, but the questions you ask, which determine the limits of your possible experience. Other than chance encounters, we can only encounter in reality what we have previously encountered in fantasy. What do your think? Best wishes! \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 13:45:56 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ted Winslow Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ian: You've not answered my question. Is the explanation that evolutionary psychology provides for the antagonism to evolutionary psychology (i.e. an explanation that treats the antagonism as emanating from a "collection of Darwinian algorithms") consistent with describing the antagonism as "almost entirely emotional and political" and connecting it with "sociopolitical undercurrents"? Ted Winslow Ted Winslow E-MAIL: WINSLOW@YORKU.CA Division of Social Science VOICE: (416) 736-5054 York University FAX: (416) 736-5615 4700 Keele St. North York, Ont. CANADA M3J 1P3 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 12:15:16 PDT Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Edward Remler Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology (mind vs organ) Content-Type: text/plain >> Brad Mccormick wrote: >> >> With so much oppression in the world, I find it >> >> curious that so many persons in our so-called "society" >> >> work so hard to diminish not just the images they have >> >> of others ("students", "workers", "mental patients", >> >> etc.), >> >> apropos my point about the sociopolitical and emotional basis >> of so much >> of the animus against Evolutionary Psychology. This response >> illustrates >> that point beautifully. The Church also had good moral (as well as >> intellectual) concerns underlying their order to Galileo to stop >> publicizing his work as *the truth* (they did not require him to cease >> his work or to teach it as hypothesis, > >Is this altogether true? My understanding is that, at first, >they said G. could teach heliocentrism as a mathematical >speculation or instrument for computation, but that later he >was even forbidden to do *this*. I am farily well read on this subject but certainly no expert. The literature on the trial is supposedly the largest of any topic in the history of science. Since Galileo was finally put under house arrest, it was not posible for him to teach at all. Perhaps this is what you are referring to. In any case, whether or not the Church became less tolerant as their patience with him wore away is not apropos. ..... This is such an old question, and one so worked >> over--that we >> must rework it yet again is really depressing. > >I'm not sure what you're referring to here??? If the Church had not thought Galileo's work undermined the basis for their understanding of Christian morality, they would not have brought him before the Inquisition. The two Popes involved, and Cardinal Bellarmine, were educated, serious men with serious concerns. I say this to distinguish them from a large rabble (intellectually speaking) who always latches on in these cases for a variety of other reasons. I credit those who oppose Evolutionary Psychology today with analogous serious moral concerns. You talk about when heliocentrism was "proven" but that is not the point. If a reasonable person feels a theory is proven, then that person will have little problem with it. That person will somehow accomodate just as the Church has accomodated to heliocentrism. So I am not talking about people who consciously avoid what they consider to be the proven truth. The point about the trial of Galileo, and about the controversy we are discussing today, is the attitude to be taken by those who do not consider the case proven. Normally, we allow scientists to push their version of truth before proven, understanding that controversy is part of the process of getting at the truth. But if some of them, or their followers, use such theories immorally, should the moral ones subject the immoral ones to what is, in effect, a modern Inquisition. The answer to this question is the one I had thought had been thoroughly worked over and agreed upon. But I am wrong. >> ----------- >> >> My response to this is that Science is as Science does. > >Ditto Bill Clinton, Ken Starr, Adolf Hitler, and every thing and >living being, too. I guess the "net" is that better ideas can >only have force in the real world if they can be successfully >*marketed* (I'm not being merely cynical here) I am not sure what this means. If you are one of those who consider that science is just a matter of marketing, then my experience is that I cannot communicate with you. We are truly in different worlds. ... > Other than chance encounters, > we can only encounter in reality > what we have previously encountered in fantasy. > >What do your think? > What I think is that I agree with this but that it is irrelevant to the essential point of this discussion. Ed Remler ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 20:30:35 +0100 Reply-To: Ian Pitchford Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ted Winslow wrote: You've not answered my question. Is the explanation that evolutionary psychology provides for the antagonism to evolutionary psychology (i.e. an explanation that treats the antagonism as emanating from a "collection of Darwinian algorithms") consistent with describing the antagonism as "almost entirely emotional and political" and connecting it with "sociopolitical undercurrents"? ____ REPLY: It's true that I've not answered your question, and that was deliberate as I don't want to assume that the phenomena you've mentioned ("antagonism" and "virulent antipathy" toward evolutionary psychology or anything else) do fall within the domain of evolutionary psychology, and I also thought you were asking about these emotions in general, since this is the only type of question that can be answered within the framework of evolutionary psychology. These emotions could exist as a result of natural selection, if they're manifestations of "affect programs" and if they meet the criteria I outlined, or they could be evolutionary byproducts, or exaptations, or the result of socialization and associative learning. Generally speaking multiple lines of enquiry need to converge on a common perspective in order to identify a modular system, and enquiries into these things usually draw on psychological and neuropsychological data, developmental studies, anthropological work, neurological studies of double dissociations, and so on. However, even if there are evolved "affective mechanisms" this doesn't provide any insight into any individual's behaviour or response to a particular phenomena, since individuals differ in both their biological characteristics and learning environment. So I suppose the answer could be "yes, an explanation of these emotions, drawing on evolutionary psychology, could be consistent with describing the antagonism as "almost entirely emotional and political" and connecting it with "sociopolitical undercurrents". But this is all getting far too convoluted and hypothetical for me. Best wishes Ian Ian Pitchford Department of Psychiatry University of Sheffield, UK ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 20:50:08 +0100 Reply-To: Ian Pitchford Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology (mind vs organ) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Brad McCormick, Ed.D wrote: The problem is at least as old as Kant's _Critique of Pure Reason_: there are objects of consciousness (or whatever Pomo-ers will tolerate that the event of awareness of [whatever] be called, *and* there is consciousness itself, which is the consciousness *of* its objects. ____ REPLY: This phenomological level of experience is individual and unique, but its existence is not incompatible with the thesis that the capacity for phenomenal consciousness is dependent on a dedicated neural architecture. This neural architecture may or may not be modular, and phenomenal consciousness may or may not be adaptive. The philosopher, Peter Carruthers believes it to be an exaptation. Since adherents of evolutionary psychology generally don't subscribe to eliminative materialism it does not have any anitpathy to phenomenology or hermeneutics and as far as I can see the two approaches are quite compatible. My appreciation of these philosophical issues is far from subtle but I think I agree with you that this view of evolved modular systems does not "subsume transcendental ("critical") philosophy: Kant, Husserl, et al." But I don't agree that hermeneutics subsumes science. Best wishes Ian ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 19:25:03 -0400 Reply-To: bradmcc@cloud9.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Organization: AbiCo. Subject: Re: Elliott Sober on Evolutionary Psychology (mind vs organ) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Edward Remler wrote: [snip] > If the Church had not thought Galileo's work undermined the basis for > their understanding of Christian morality, they would not have brought > him before the Inquisition. The two Popes involved, and Cardinal > Bellarmine, were educated, serious men with serious concerns. [snip] I feel Bertold Brecht eloquently addressed this issue in his play _Galileo_, where he says that an implication of the heliocentric cosmological theory is that is the sun and planets do not revolve around an immovable earth, perhaps the peasants (etc.) need not immutably revolve around an immutable feudal hierarchy. Heady stuff! Which leads to something I'm not sure exactly how to say, but I'll do my best: "Educated, serious men with serious concerns" often are engaged in the preservation of an iniquitous socio-economic status-quo the import of which far outweighs -- in their esteemed judgment -- such ephenera as "truth" (see above). I believe the proper appelation of this is: "The treason of the clerks", but, of course, they think differently. This is, in my opinion, one of the most serious issues in the history of the history of ideas, etc. Eppur si move (I also note, alas, that, for the past few days, the Museum of Technology in Florence, which has provided much Gailieo material, including his abjuration http://galileo.imss.firenze.it/museo/a/eabiura.html has been: Forbidden You don't have permission to access /museo/a/eabiura.html on this server. I would ask others to try the above link and let me know if *they* can get through, so that, if they can and I can't, I can report the problem to my Internet Servies Provider. Thank you.) \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc@cloud9.net 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 19:48:34 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: New, extensive web site on human nature Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Announcing a new web site, with extensive archives and other resources: Human-Nature.com. http://www.human-nature.com/ It has been set up with the broad aim of bringing into communication the variety of approaches to the understanding of human nature which have a regrettable tendency to be less in touch with one another than they might. The editors welcome writings and discussions on history, philosophy and social studies in the human sciences; Darwinian scholarship; Darwinian psychology, sociobiology and debates about them; cognitive psychology; modularity; narrative approaches; hermeneutics; verstehen; biography and autobiography; behavioural genetics; psychoanalytic and psychodynamic approaches and so on. This list of topics and disciplines is meant to be suggestive, not exhaustive. Our main aim is both to act as host to original work and to seek to create an enabling space, a forum for constructive (including constructively critical) discussion and critiques of the terms of reference and assumptions of various approaches to the understanding of people as individuals, in groups, in institutions, in societies and as political and ideological beings. We are affiliated with a number of existing email forums and web sites and will add others as we think it appropriate to do so. We also provide a number of guides to internet resources, bibliographies and reading lists. We will add to these on an ongoing basis and welcome contributions and suggestions for links. ARCHIVES: The human-nature.com web site and others associated with it contain extensive archives of classical papers (e.g., by Barbara Heyl and David Ingleby) and most, and, in some cases, nearly all, of the writings of certain writers on human nature, group relations and society, e.g., David Armstrong, W. Gordon Lawrence, Toma Tomov, Robert M. Young, including a number of complete books, e.,g., by some of the above and by Em Farrell on eating disorders, David Clark on the story of a mental hospital. Others will be added in due course. REVIEWS OF DISCIPLINES & ISSUES: We are particularly interested in receiving overviews of recent work in disciplines relevant to the understanding of human nature, e.g., particular human sciences, narrative psychology, including historical and philosophical approaches. BOOK REVIEWS: Future: We invite authors and publishers to send us books at an early stage so that we can get them reviewed so as to appear on the web site at or very near the date of publication. Manuscripts or proofs can be sent (by post), providing that a copy of the published work is also sent when it is available. Present: People wishing to offer reviews of recently-published works are welcome to propose ideas or to submit reviews (as attachments, preferably in RTF - Rich Text Format). Past: We are also open to essays about books which have been published at any time, about which contributors to the site may wish to write an essay, critique or appreciation. Books may be sent by post to Human-Nature.Com, 26 Freegrove Road, London N7 9RQ, England. NEW ARTICLES at the Science-as-Culture site: 'Revisiting Basic Colour Terms' by Barbara Saunders (Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven), an impressive historical and ideological analysis of theories of colour perception: http://www.human-nature.com/science-as-culture/saunders.html Author's summary: 'In this paper a historiography of colour science and a re-reading of W. R. Rivers and E. H. Lenneberg casts new light on Berlin & Kay's Basic Color Terms. Unacknowledged commitments are presented, as too, are hints about links to a larger research programme, namely, Evolutionary Psychology. Throughout I claim that Berlin and Kay endow their ambitious project with an aura of strong prima facie evidence by fiat of colour science. Colour science in the relevant sense is not however an empirical but an a priori science, commitment to which fatally compromises Berlin and Kay's claims.' Comments welcome to pop00127@lambik.cc.kuleuven.ac.be 'The place of the 1898 Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Straits (CAETS) in the history of British social anthropology' by Keith Hart (Cambridge University) http://www.human-nature.com/science-as-culture/hart.html Author's summary: 'This lecture, introducing a conference on anthropology and psychology to mark the centenary of the Torres Straits expedition, seeks to place the work of the expedition's anthropologists within the history of the British discipline. The expedition symbolised a turn from Victorian armchair evolutionism to 20th century ethnography with its emphasis on intensive fieldwork. The founders of modern British social anthropology, Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown, represented themselves as the authors of a "functionalist revolution" with few, if any antecedents. This has tended to obscure the intellectual contribution of W.H.R. Rivers, hero of Pat Barker's recent trilogy of novels, who first sought to maintain anthropology and psychology as separate disciplines, but then attempted a reflexive synthesis shortly before his premature death in 1922. The lecture suggests that British social anthropology once provided an allegorical commentary on a world organised by nation-states. If we wish to make sense of self and society in the post-national phase of human history, the example of the Torres Straits expedition and especially of Rivers deserves our serious attention.' Comments welcome: Keith Hart To propose writings or other projects for the web site, write to robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or Ian.Pitchford@scientist.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 09:16:19 EDT Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Valdusek@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Evolutionary Psychology Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ed Remler writes: <> This assumes that the animus against evolutionary psychology is purely emotional, and that evolutionary psychology is all, itself, objective science. But there is also an emotional and political force behind much of the support of evolutionary psychology in its Dawkinsian, genic selectionist version, different from Sober's group selectionist version. There are also geniunely scientific criticisms of mainstream Dawkins-style evol. psych. presented by Lewontin, Gould, Hubbard and many others. If one means by evolutionary psychology merely the evolutionary study of the development of the human mind and culture, then Remler is correct (and Gould, for instance has no animus against that.) But if one means by evolutionary psychology, the Dawkinsian version (I almost wrote Dickensian version) concerned with genes analogized to Chicago gangsters, etc., or E. O. Wilson's and others' such as about the inability of women, Mexican-Americans, etc. to succeed in science, law, and politics, then the motivations of those favoring evolutionary psychology are just as emotional and political and those of the opponents. It is a kind of "Machievelliansim for the little man," a pose of toughness and bigotry masquerading as objective science. If Prof. Remler, who is used to real science, like physics, were to look at the literature of evolutionary psychology, he would find a great deal of shoddy data and reasoning, as well as the amazing pose of tough-mindedness and sneering at those who believe in equality. Even Steve Pinker, certainly relatively liberal and mainstream, ridicules those who envisage a world without God or without war (quoting John Lennon's "Imagine" and then treating is as "treacle." The Texas center for Evolutionary Psychology of Human Differences (which incorporates older studies of race differences by Laughlin, Horn and others based on dubitable data) is very politically motivated (although they incorporate one genuine evolutionary psychologist, Buss, into their faculty for respectability. Sober and D. S. Wilson are attempting to capture the name "evolutionary psych." for their own, admirable and carefully thought out group-selectionist program of explanation. Good luck to them in their project, though I doubt they will succeed. But the mainstream of what is called evolutionary psychology is based on the selfish gene model and on genic selectionism, which Sober has logically criticized in an earlier paper with Lewontin. The mainstream does ally itself with a number of political positions, and like Dawkins and Dennett, redbaits their opponents such as Steve Gould on ocassion. Evolutionary psychologists love to pose as new Galileos, cowering persecuted by brutal humanists. In fact they seem to get grants and university positions quite succesfully and in fact dominate the popular media discussions of human nature, where hand-waving appeals to genes play the role that appeals to astrology play in (supposedly) less educated circles. The evol. psychs. themselves engage in a bit of politicing, as when the Colorado biology faculty threatened to boycott Lewontin when he had been invited to speak there (and one cannot question his competance in evolutionary biology). Prof. Remler ought to look at the evolutionary psychology of rape for examples of his detatched and objective science of these new Galileos. For instance Dan Dennett defends talk about a homosexual rapist spiney headed worm. In fact the worm is not engaged in rape and is not homosexual. It places a plug in the sperm duct of a competing male to prevent it from mating. Also see David Jantzen ("one of America's most creative ecologists" and geniunely a smart ecologist and conservationist) for his discussion of rape in plants, in which language is stretched beyond its meaning to make an implicit political point. The "rapist" is a male plant which happens to have a chemical on its pollen which counteracts another chemical on the female plant's ova that discourage fertilization. Similarly with fish rape, where the "rapist" fish never gets within yards of the victim, because the sperm and eggs are floating in the water external to their bodily sources. Similarly, one ought to look at Bouchard's twin studies, now widely praised, both by the popular media and by genetic engineers, because they purport to show 80% heritability of numerous traits such as political conservatism. This heroic Galileo had his grant applications refused by NIH and NSF for ten years, and went to the Pioneer Fund, which has numerous ties to segregationist, anti-immigrant, and even Klan, neo-Nazi and other such folks (even Remler would probably grant this is "pollitical" to some slight degree.) Pioneer is largely responsible for the financing of Jensen, Shockley, and many of the neo-fascist contributors to "Mankind Qauarterly" who supplied "data" for the "Bell Curve." One fellow associated with the Pioneer Fund was so far right, that the World Anti-Communist League expelled him for his attempts to bring old European Nazis into the organization. (Might this not be just a tad political?) Bouchard himself refuses to show his crucial data on the separateness of his supposedly separately reared twins to critics. He promised a book-length study a decade ago which would give this background. It never appeared. Meanwhile many scientists in and outside of the field have been convinced by his popular media presentations and coincidence anecdotes. Evolutionary psychologists such as Steve Pinker use these anecdotes as if they are lawful scientific data. Bouchard even gave the introduction to a segment on telepathic communication between twins on the TV show "Unvolved Mysteries" while he misled the NBC-TV reporter Robert Bazell about the publication status of his own work. Bouchard successfully circumvented the peer review process through publishing in the popular media. Please look at the actual literature of mainstream evolutionary psychology and its used in the popular media (which, no matter how vulgar and oversimplified for political purposes , the major figures in the mainstream of the field never criticize). To criticize the genic selectionist, Machievellian evoltutionary psychology, whose proponents far from being persecuted Galileo's bask in vulgarized conservative coverage in the popular media, is not to reject the project of an evolutionary account of human beings, a project that Sober and D. S. Wilson (not to be confused with E. O. Wilson) are pursuing. Val Dusek ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 16:29:50 +0100 Reply-To: Ian Pitchford Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Re: Evolutionary Psychology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Val Dusek wrote: This assumes that the animus against evolutionary psychology is purely emotional, and that evolutionary psychology is all, itself, objective science. ___ REPLY: Animus is by definition purely emotional and, since there is no good reason why we should care about scientific knowledge at all, it is true to say that the pursuit of knowledge is value-laden - we just do seem to think that knowledge is good, no matter where it leads us. However, it's hardly objective to conclude that a discipline isn't objective just because a cursory examination of some peripheral texts suggests that its tenets might contradict left-wing political prejudices. _________________ Dusek continues: But there is also an emotional and political force behind much of the support of evolutionary psychology in its Dawkinsian, genic selectionist version, different from Sober's group selectionist version. There are also geniunely scientific criticisms of mainstream Dawkins-style evol. psych. presented by Lewontin, Gould, Hubbard and many others. ___________ REPLY: This is just wrong. Evolutionary psychologists don't particularly draw on the works of Dawkins, except inasmuch as his work represents mainstream biological thinking. You could equally well say that the discipline draws on Gould's works, since everyone has very much taken to heart his criticism of rapant adaptationism. ___________ Dusek continues: If one means by evolutionary psychology merely the evolutionary study of the development of the human mind and culture, then Remler is correct (and Gould, for instance has no animus against that.) But if one means by evolutionary psychology, the Dawkinsian version (I almost wrote Dickensian version) concerned with genes analogized to Chicago gangsters, etc., or E. O. Wilson's and others' such as about the inability of women, Mexican-Americans, etc. to succeed in science, law, and politics, then the motivations of those favoring evolutionary psychology are just as emotional and political and those of the opponents. It is a kind of "Machievelliansim for the little man," a pose of toughness and bigotry masquerading as objective science. _____ REPLY: Neither Dawkins nor Wilson are connected with modern evolutionary psychology, a discipline that was essentially refounded by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby - two people you don't seem to have heard of. Evolutionary psychology has two central theses, the massive modularity hypothesis and the adaptation hypothesis. The first is the characterisation of the mind as a set of domain-specific information processors, and the second is that claim that these modules are adaptations, not to the current environment, but to what John Bowlby called the EEA - the environment of evolutionary adaptation, that is primarily to the Plesitocene period. Since it's obvious that the mind also incorporates non-proprietary stores of information, features that are exaptations, non-modular systems, and mechanisms that philosopher Steve Stich calls "situated Kluges" I don't think that Gould has any general quarrel with the basic tenets of evolutionary psychology, though of course he is bound to have reservations as to whether any particular system has been selected for. Both he and Chomsky, for example, do not believe that universal grammar has been selected for but has arisen simply because of an increase in the processing power of the brain - a completely untenable position in my view. As for Dawkins and the "selfish gene" David Hull has pointed out that the book could justifiably have been called "The Altruistic Organism" since it is primarily about the evolution of cooperation through mechanisms such as kin selection and reciprocal altruism. Most of the criticisms of this work are based on Dawkins' choice of terminology and analogy, and I suspect that most people mistakenly think that "genic selectionism" is about the genetic basis of selfishness, rather than the genetic basis of cooperation. __________________ Dusek continues If Prof. Remler, who is used to real science, like physics, were to look at the literature of evolutionary psychology, he would find a great deal of shoddy data and reasoning, as well as the amazing pose of tough-mindedness and sneering at those who believe in equality. ___ REPLY: I'd like to see some evidence that you're familiar with the literature of evolutionary psychology, since your essay "Sociobiology Sanitized' displays none. You quote a popular work by a journalist I haven't heard of, and most of your other references are to Wilson and Dawkins, who don't work in the field. As for shoddy data, you mention "Daniel Kosman, editor of Science magazine, could claim authoritatively that the nature-nurture controversy was over and that nature won" The editor's name is Koshland. The editorial meant was published March 20, 1987, not 1984. Koshland did not say what you claim. His words were: 'The debate on nature and nurture in regard to behavior is basically over. Both are involved and we are going to have to live with that complexity to make our society more humane for the individual and more civilized for the body politic." Koshland also wrote in the same editorial: 'This picture [of nature/nurture interaction] may seem obvious to a scientist, but our judges, journalists, legislators, and philosophers have been slow to learn this lesson' (thanks to Hiram Caton for this reference). _____________________ Dusek continues: Even Steve Pinker, certainly relatively liberal and mainstream, ridicules those who envisage a world without God or without war (quoting John Lennon's "Imagine" and then treating is as "treacle." ___ REPLY: Even if this picture of Pinker's work is true I think you would have to say that his opinions have nothing to do with evolutionary psycholgoy as such. __________________ Dusek continues: Sober and D. S. Wilson are attempting to capture the name "evolutionary psych." for their own, admirable and carefully thought out group-selectionist program of explanation. Good luck to them in their project, though I doubt they will succeed. But the mainstream of what is called evolutionary psychology is based on the selfish gene model and on genic selectionism, which Sober has logically criticized in an earlier paper with Lewontin. The mainstream does ally itself with a number of political positions, and like Dawkins and Dennett, redbaits their opponents such as Steve Gould on ocassion. ____ REPLY: You are grouping together people on the basis of your own belief that sociobiology and evolutionary psychology are identical. This is begging the question. Much of the debate between Gould, Dawkins, Sober, Wilson, Maynard-Smith et al is over general questions in evolutionary theory which may well depend more on matters of definition than of substance. Maynard-Smith, in his review of Sober and Wilson's book , agrees with much of their analysis, but fails to see a case for using the term "group selection". Similarly, the debate between Gould and Dawkins on "punctuated equilibrium" versus "gradualism" ("creeps" versus "jerks") may depend more on the definition of these terms than on the theoretical weight given to each process. That they both occur seems obvious. These debates don't affect the research program of evolutionary psychology as such. _________________________ Dusek continues: Evolutionary psychologists love to pose as new Galileos, cowering persecuted by brutal humanists. In fact they seem to get grants and university positions quite succesfully and in fact dominate the popular media discussions of human nature, where hand-waving appeals to genes play the role that appeals to astrology play in (supposedly) less educated circles. ___ REPLY: Evolutionary psychologists have a great deal in common with humanists, since they both oppose eliminative materialism, and they both subscribe to the importance of psychology as an irreducible level of explanation. The work of anthropologist Dan Sperber shows how evolutionary psychology is compatible with hermenutics, and the work of Pascal Boyer on the cognitive foundations of religious belief demonstrates how this level of explanation supplements our knowledge of human cognitive functioning with eliminating or minimizing the role of cultural influences. You are driving wedges between disciplines on the basis of your own faulty understanding of the subject. _______________ Dusek continues: The evol. psychs themselves engage in a bit of politicing, as when the Colorado biology faculty threatened to boycott Lewontin when he had been invited to speak there (and one cannot question his competance in evolutionary biology). _____ REPLY: What does this have to do with evolutionary psychology? ______________ Dusek continues: Prof. Remler ought to look at the evolutionary psychology of rape for examples of his detatched and objective science of these new Galileos. For instance Dan Dennett defends talk about a homosexual rapist spiney headed worm. In fact the worm is not engaged in rape and is not homosexual. It places a plug in the sperm duct of a competing male to prevent it from mating. Also see David Jantzen ("one of America's most creative ecologists" and geniunely a smart ecologist and conservationist) for his discussion of rape in plants, in which language is stretched beyond its meaning to make an implicit political point. The "rapist" is a male plant which happens to have a chemical on its pollen which counteracts another chemical on the female plant's ova that discourage fertilization. Similarly with fish rape, where the "rapist" fish never gets within yards of the victim, because the sperm and eggs are floating in the water external to their bodily sources. __________ REPLY: Are the evil consequences and intentions supposed to be apparent here? Are the facts different if the terminology is rephrased? Is the oppression inflicted by scientific terminology a serious concern? I just don't understand the thrust of your argument at all. __ Dusek continues: Similarly, one ought to look at Bouchard's twin studies, now widely praised, both by the popular media and by genetic engineers, because they purport to show 80% heritability of numerous traits such as political conservatism. This heroic Galileo had his grant applications refused by NIH and NSF for ten years, and went to the Pioneer Fund, which has numerous ties to segregationist, anti-immigrant, and even Klan, neo-Nazi and other such folks (even Remler would probably grant this is "pollitical" to some slight degree.) Pioneer is largely responsible for the financing of Jensen, Shockley, and many of the neo-fascist contributors to "Mankind Qauarterly" who supplied "data" for the "Bell Curve." One fellow associated with the Pioneer Fund was so far right, that the World Anti-Communist League expelled him for his attempts to ring old European Nazis into the organization. (Might this not be just a tad olitical?) ____ REPLY: It's just as easy to justify racism on cultural relativist grounds. Those who believe perception is structured by language or that emotions are culturally constucted must logically believe that people of other cultures are literally incapable of perceiving the world as we do or of responding to it as we do - this makes them "alien" in a way that evolutionary psychology never could. Racist views are particular to racists not to any particualr discipline, and racists will draw on anything they think will support their prejudices. Once again you don't present any information relevant to evolutionary psychology and its supposed prejudices. _____________ Dusek continues: Bouchard himself refuses to show his crucial data on the separateness of his supposedly separately reared twins to critics. He promised a book-length study a decade ago which would give this background. It never appeared. Meanwhile many scientists in and outside of the field have been convinced by his popular media presentations and coincidence anecdotes. Evolutionary psychologists such as Steve Pinker use these anecdotes as if they are lawful scientific data. Bouchard even gave the introduction to a segment on telepathic communication between twins on the TV show "Unvolved Mysteries" while he misled the NBC-TV reporter Robert Bazell about the publication status of his own work. Bouchard successfully circumvented the peer review process through publishing in the popular media. _____ REPLY: As far as I can tell from the bibliography it is to Bouchard's two peer-reviewed articles in Science that Pinker refers in "How the Mind Works". Bouchard's work can stand or fall on its own merits since its either true or false irrespective of his motivation. It's also obvious that twin studies are valuable tools in genetic research regardless of whether any particular study is of any value. _____________ To criticize the genic selectionist, Machievellian evoltutionary psychology, whose proponents far from being persecuted Galileo's bask in vulgarized conservative coverage in the popular media, is not to reject the project of an evolutionary account of human beings, a project that Sober and D. S. Wilson (not to be confused with E. O. Wilson) are pursuing. _______________ Here is Edward O. Wilson's comment from the back of Sober and Wilson's new book "Unto Others" "Unto Others is an important, original, and well-written book. It contains the definitive contemporary statement on higher-level selection and the evolutionary origin of co-operation." Now that they've been touched by the hand of Satan you may want to cast them into the wilderness. Regards Ian Ian Pitchford Department of Psychiatry University of Sheffield, UK ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 09:11:47 PDT Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Edward Remler Subject: Re: Evolutionary Psychology Content-Type: text/plain Val Dusek- Thank you for your note. I am obviously not as well versed in this field as you and I truly appreciate you information. My limited experience in the literature of the current debate is basically as follows. I have read major portions of E. O. Wilson's "Sociobiology" (a condensed version but still thick) and found in it nothing but what seemed to me to be quite reasonable and enlightening. Obviously he seems to have said other kinds of things elsewhere (or I have missed them in his book). The question is whether they are in scientific literature. Unless science journals in biology are vastly inferior to those in physics with respect to editorial policy, it seems to me unlikely. I also dimly remember reading Dawkin's book long ago. I think I skimmed it because it seemed to me to be merely a flashy popularization. I certainly had thought myself of the idea of the living creature as the tool of the DNA prior to reading the book. I do not think that this is such a subtle an idea or so difficult to think of. I am sure that it has occurred to very very many people independently. Since the book was merely a popularization I did not take it that seriously and am surprised that scientists get worked up over it. Popular books on physics are half-truths (necessarily) and physicists don't get worked up over that. Of course, I realize that typically the implications of biology for public policy are more direct than those of physics , but that is an issue separate from scientific truth (something which I believe exists). When I make the comparison with Galileo it is with respect to treatment within the scientific/academic community, and I think that where the comparison properly belongs. This brings me to a formative incident I had here at The College of William and Mary where I teach in the Physics Department. Years ago I was on a college-wide committe to invite speakers to an interdisciplinary forum. I had recently heard of sociobiology and thought that it would be great to invite Wilson. I was unaware of any controversy surrounding him. I was practically accused of being a Nazi and the suggestion was never seriously considered. If I had had the opportunity to hear him and he had said something outrageous, I would have risen in the audience and questioned him. The students and I missed out on a potentially very educational experience. My experience is, of course, not uncommon in the academic community and that is the community ultimately determining careers for people who may wish to develop evolutionary psychology. That is what I was responding to in Sober's talk. I share your concerns when it comes to public policy, statements to the press, and so on. In fact, although I have belonged to the ACLU forever, I often disagree with their views on free speech. I do not believe racist speech should be unbridled by law. But anti-racism cannot and need not interfere with real science. Part of the problem seems to be that a preponderance of people in academia do not believe such a thing as real science exists. They believe all is politics. It is a belief that not even the most rabid anti-Galilean priest held to. That--ye olde science wars--may be the root of the problem I am concerned with. I do not think we have a fundamental disgreement, only somewhat different experiences and therefore sensitivities. Thanks again for your remarks, and best wishes, Ed Remler ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 12:22:12 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Norman Levitt Subject: Evolutionary biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I think Ian Pitchford's reply to Val Dusek pretty much covered the ground. Two minot points, however. 1) The demonization of E.O. Wilson strikes me as unfair, as well as absurd. In the frenzy of the '70's, all sorts of claims were made about the incipient "fascism" of "Sociobiolgy" (which claims, I'm ashamed to say, I took seriouslY0. If, at the time, anyone was guilty of "fascism", it was the people who shouted Wilson down--including, unfortunately, Lewontin and Gould, in their genteel way. The sociobioloby program is a broad and general philosophical notion, not a concrete research program, let alone a body of confirmed results. As Ian points out, evolutionary psychology is a much narrower and much more well-defined research program (although it is and will remain for some time necessarily speculative). I do think, however, that it's a little unfair to Wilson not to note that he is, in some sense, the godfather (no political inferences, via, Mario Puzo and Andrew Ross, please!) of evolutionary psychology. As I recall, for some workers, the term "evolutionary psychology" was insisted upon--in part--specifically because of the political danger of being tagged a "sociobiologist." Apparently, if one takes Sober seriously (and I do), that terminological ploy hasn't been entirely successful. There is still a large body of dogma that insists--in line with a doctrinal tradition that extends from Franz Boas to Judith Butler--on the infintite plasticity of human nature. And in the current academic climate, it's a dogma that remains powerful enough to make trouble for professional scientists and scholars. In other words, the phenomenon traced by Carl Degler a few years ago in "In Search of Human Nature" is still very much with us. I don't quarrel with Dusek's assertion that the "popular" literature is often saturated with heavily vulgarised and simpleminded versions of ethological biologism and hereditarinism. But academic life has its own deeply embedded vulgar prejudices. As Pitchford's explicit and documented rebuttal demonstrates, Dusek may have absorbed these prejudices rather too unquestioningly. You can't refute any particular claim of evolutionary psychlogy, or its methodological assumptions, on the basis of what the Pioneer Fund might or might not fund, any more than you can confirm them on the basis of a 500-word snippet in "Time" or "Newsweek." Norm Levitt ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1998 08:35:14 EDT Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Valdusek@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Evol Psych. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ian writes: <> I have been finishing a couple of papers and arranging travel and hustling university money to visit the Alhambra in Spain, as well as taking care of my niece and taking my mother to the hospital so I didn't reply to Caton yet. True I said Kosman instead of Koshland (so much for trying to work with a laptop in a hotel without my references). Thanks to you and Caton for correction. I flew back from Greece with one "Cosmic" Kosman, an Aristotle scholar (showing my pre-Darwinian primitivism) and because of all the chain- smoking and stringed instrument playing and fist fighting of the passengers in the row behind me on the overnight flight, my brain short-circuited in messing up the spelling. As for the rest of the discussion of his editorial, see Diane Paul, "the Nature Nurture Controversy: Buried Alive" in Science for the People, 1987 (maybe put it on exciting your Human nature website). One irony of Koshland's editorial is that he started off from the "proof" of the location of the gene for bipolar disorder, which turned out a few months later to be an error. One member of the large Amish family tree came down belatedly with bipolar and this thew off all the lod scores (showing how sensitive the tests are to a single node in tree). Koshland claims to be an interactionist, but in another editorial he starts off from an unfortunate Iranian immigrant who was mentallly disturbed and who demanded that the police chief of Oakland pull down his pants on TV. From this single incident Koshland goes on to advocate a massive program of genetic engineering to cure crime, poverty and homelessness. Koshland claims that schools, prisons, housing, and other social programs are "mere bandaids" and that the main causes of homelessness are genetic (perhaps the 1900 "seafaring gene" ?) :-) This hardly sounds like the balanced view he pretends to. Ian's REPLY: As far as I can tell from the bibliography it is to Bouchard's two peer-reviewed articles in Science that Pinker refers in "How the Mind Works". Counterreply: But in his earlier 1995 "The Language Instinct" he makes much of Bouchard's "eerie" annecdotes. Dusek continues: The evol. psychs themselves engage in a bit of politicing, as when the Colorado biology faculty threatened to boycott Lewontin when he had been invited to speak there (and one cannot question his competance in evolutionary biology). _____ REPLY: What does this have to do with evolutionarypsychology? The point is that the debate betwee evol. psych. or the earlier SOB (sociobiology) and its opponents is usually understood as one between objective scientists and emotional, politically biases leftists. I suggest that it is between emotional, politically biased rightists and emotional, politically biases leftists. But this is understandable, as the issues are closer to us and to social policy and gender roles than are studies of black holes or strings. REPLY: You are grouping together people on the basis of your own belief that sociobiology and evolutionary psychology are identical. This is begging the question. Much of the debate between Gould, Dawkins, Sober, Wilson, Maynard- Smith et al is over general questions in evolutionary theory which may well depend more on matters of definition than of substance. I think it a mistake to reduce the Gould-Dawkins debate to one over "rates" as Dawkins attempts to. But that's a long story. Also, what SOB and mainstream evol. psych. share is their commitment to genic selectionism. Despite the fact that Dawkins is supposed to be popularizer, I have been surprised to what extent working biologists use him and his way of thinking, and even sometimes misattribute kin-selection to him rather than Hamilton et al. Thanks for the many and energetic replies, but this counter-reply to a few of them will have to do for now. Cheers, Val Dusek ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 09:27:43 +0100 Reply-To: Ian Pitchford Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Evol (Evil?) Psychology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Val Dusek wrote: Counterreply: But in his earlier 1995 "The Language Instinct" he makes much of Bouchard's "eerie" annecdotes. ___ REPLY: In "The Language Instinct" Pinker cites only the same co-authored peer-reviewed paper in Science referred to in "How the Mind Works". I append a brief note from Pinker about Bouchard's work. David Sloan Wilson is in Austria at the moment and unable to comment, but is more interested in substantive claims about the issues than in "unsupported accusations about motives." I have some detailed comments to make about a number of issues you raise in "Sociobiology Sanitized" but would like to make them in a more considered, formal response to the piece, since a number of those you mention have been kind enough to supply the relevant references. Derek Freeman, whose work is misrepresented in the article, is working on a new book "The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead : An Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Researches" (due for December publication) based on the Mead papers at the Library of Congress and has reconstructed on a daily basis just what research she conducted (thanks again to Hiram Caton for this information). I accept that your criticisms are inspired by noble motives but would urge you to consider that your characterization of the discipline of evolutionary psychology is wrong. The following description, from doyens of the discipline Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby, would be endorsed by most of the small band working in it: "At present, crossing such [disciplinary] boundaries is often met with xenophobia, packaged in the form of such familiar accusations as "intellectual imperialism" or "reductionism." But by calling for for conceptual integration in the behavioral and social sciences we are neither calling for reductionism nor for the conquest and assimilation of one field by another. Theories of selection pressures are not theories of psychology; they are theories about the causal forces that produced our psychology. And theories about psychology are not theories of culture; they are theories about some of the mechanisms that shape cultural forms. In fact, not only do the principles of one field not reduce to those of another, but by tracing the relationships between fields, additional principles often appear." (The Adapted Mind, p.12) The standard picture of biological evolution endorsed by Dawkins, Gould, Wilson, and the others you mistakenly place in opposing camps does not result in a view of psychology that is reductive, eliminativist, or antagonistic to hermeneutics, cultural theory or philosophy. Indeed many of the principal exponents of the modular view of the mind are individuals working in philosophy of mind and biology such as Gabriel Segal, Peter Carruthers, Steve Stich, and Jerry Fodor, to name just a few. Regards Ian Ian Pitchford Department of Psychiatry University of Sheffield, UK _______________ From: Steve Pinker To: Ian Pitchford Date: Monday, August 17, 1998 5:45 PM Subject: Evolutionary Psychology Dear Ian, As you guessed, I can't reply to all the commentary on How the Mind Works, because there has been so much of it -- the work of Bouchard and other behavioral geneticists has been published in countless refereed articles, and has been replicated with many techniques in half-a-dozen countries. Sincerely, Steve Pinker ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 02:51:03 PDT Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Edward Remler Subject: Re: Evol (Evil?) Psychology Content-Type: text/plain Ian Pitchford Relayed the following: -- the work of Bouchard and other behavioral geneticists has been >published in countless refereed articles, and has been replicated with many >techniques in half-a-dozen countries. > >Sincerely, >Steve Pinker > Now we are at a point at which something may be learned if Val Dusek explains why his comments on Bouchard leave a (to me) misleading impression of this work. 1) Was he unaware of that Bouchard's work has been replicated? 2) Does he believe that all this work is similarly tainted by ideology? 3) Was it an oversight? 4) Did he purposefully misrepresent the situation for a higher good? 5) Is Pinker misleading? 6) ...? Ed Remler ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 15:13:25 +0100 Reply-To: Ian Pitchford Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ian Pitchford Subject: Bouchard: bibliography MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This [incomplete] bibliography of publications by Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr. should assist anyone wishing to explore his work or Dusek's claim that "Bouchard successfully circumvented the peer review process through publishing in the popular media." Ian Ian Pitchford Department of Psychiatry University of Sheffield, UK _________________ Arvey, R.D., Bouchard, T.J., Segal, N.L., & Abraham, L.M. (1989). Job satisfaction: Environmental and genetic components. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74(2), 187-192. Arvey, R.D., McCall, B.P., Bouchard, T.J., Taubman, P., & et al. (1994). Genetic influences on job satisfaction and work value. Personality & Individual Differences, 17(1), 21-33. Baker, L.A., Asendorpf, J., Bishop, D., Boomsma, D.I., Bouchard, T.J., Jr., Brand, C.R., Fulker, D.W., Gardner, H., Kinsbourne, M., & et al. (1993). Group report: Intelligence and its inheritance--A diversity of views. In T.J. Bouchard Jr & P. Propping (Eds.), Twins as a tool of behavioral genetics. Life sciences research report, 53. (pp. 85-108). Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons. Betsworth, D.G., Bouchard, T.J., Cooper, C.R., Grotevant, H.D., & et al. (1994). Genetic and environmental influences on vocational interests assessed using adoptive and biological families and twins reared apart and together. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 44(3), 263-278. Bouchard, T.J. (1983). Do environmental similarities explain the similarity in intelligence of identical twins reared apart? Intelligence, 7(2), 175-184. Bouchard, T.J., Jr. (1991). A twice-told tale: Twins reared apart. In D. Cicchetti & W.M. Grove (Eds.), Thinking clearly about psychology: Essays in honor of Paul E. Meehl, Vol. 1: Matters of public interest; Vol. 2: Personality and psychopathology. (pp. 188-215). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Bouchard, T.J. (1994). Genes, environment, and personality. Science, 264(5166), 1700-1701. Bouchard, T.J., Jr. (1995). Longitudinal studies of personality and intelligenc e: A behavior genetic and evolutionary psychology perspective. In D.H. Saklofske & M. Zeidner (Eds.), International handbook of personality and intelligence. Perspectives on individual differences. (pp. 81-106). New York, NY: Plenum Press. Bouchard, T.J., Arvey, R.D., Keller, L.M., & Segal, N.L. (1992). Genetic influences on job satisfaction: A reply to Cropanzano and James. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77(1), 89-93. Bouchard, T.J., Lykken, D.T., McGue, M., Segal, N.L. et al. (1990). Sources of human psychological differences: The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. Science, 250(4978), 223-228. Bouchard, T.J., Lykken, D.T., McGue, M., Segal, N.L. et al. (1991). "Sources of human psychological differences: The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart": Response. Science, 252(5003), 191-192. Bouchard, T.J., & McGue, M. (1990). Genetic and rearing environmental influences on adult personality: An analysis of adopted twins reared apart. Special Issue: Biological foundations of personality: Evolution, behavioral genetics, and psychophysiology. Journal of Personality, 58(1), 263-292. Bouchard, T.J., Jr., & Propping, P. (1993). Twins as a tool of behavioral genetics, Life sciences research report, 53. (pp. xvi, 310). Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons. Bouchard, T.J., Jr., & Propping, P. (1993). Twins: Nature's twice-told tale. In T.J. Bouchard Jr & P. Propping (Eds.), Twins as a tool of behavioral genetics. Life sciences research report, 53. (pp. 1-15). Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons. Bouchard, T.J., & Segal, N.L. (1990). Advanced mathematical reasoning ability: A behavioral genetic perspective. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 13(1), 191-192. Bouchard, T.J., Segal, N.L., & Lykken, D.T. (1990). Genetic and environmental influences on special mental abilities in a sample of twins reared apart. Sixth International Congress on Twin Studies (1989, Rome, Italy). Acta Geneticae Medicae et Gemellologiae, 39(2), 193-206. Eckert, E.D., Bouchard, T.J., Bohlen, J., & Heston, L.L. (1986). Homosexuality in monozygotic twins reared apart. British Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 421-425. Grove, W.M., Eckert, E.D., Heston, L., Bouchard, T.J., & et al. (1990). Heritability of substance abuse and antisocial behavior: A study of monozygotic twins reared apart. Biological Psychiatry, 27(12), 1293-1304. Hur, Y.-M., & Bouchard, T.J. (1995). Genetic influences on perceptions of childhood family environment: A reared apart twin study. Child Development, 66(2), 330-345. Keller, L.M., Bouchard, T.J., Arvey, R.D., Segal, N.L., & et al. (1992). Work values: Genetic and environmental influences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77(1), 79-88. McGue, M., & Bouchard, T.J. (1984). Adjustment of twin data for the effects of age and sex. Behavior Genetics, 14(4), 325-343. McGue, M., & Bouchard, T.J., Jr. (1989). Genetic and environmental determinants of information processing and special mental abilities: A twin analysis. In R. Sternberg, J. (Ed.), Advances in the psychology of human intelligence, Vol. 5. (pp. 7-45). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. McGue, M., Bouchard, T.J., Jr., Iacono, W.G., & Lykken, D.T. (1993). Behavioral genetics of cognitive ability: A life-span perspective. In R. Plomin & G.E. McClearn (Eds.), Nature, nurture & psychology. (pp. 59-76). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. McGue, M., Bouchard, T.J., Lykken, D.T., & Feuer, D. (1984). Information processing abilities in twins reared apart. Intelligence, 8(3), 239-258. Moloney, D.P., Bouchard, T.J., & Segal, N.L. (1991). A genetic and environmental analysis of the vocational interests of monozygotic and dizygotic twins reared apart. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 39(1), 76-109. Resnick, S.M., Berenbaum, S.A., Gottesman, I.I., & Bouchard, T.J. (1986). Early hormonal influences on cognitive functioning in congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Developmental Psychology, 22(2), 191-198. Segal, N.L., Dysken, M.W., Bouchard, T.J., Pedersen, N.L. et al. (1990). Tourette's disorder in a set of reared-apart triplets: Genetic and environmental influences. American Journal of Psychiatry, 147(2), 196-199. Segal, N.L., Grove, W.M., & Bouchard, T.J., Jr. (1991). Psychiatric investigations and findings from the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. In M.T. Tsuang, K.S. Kendler, & M.J. Lyons (Eds.), Genetic issues in psychosocial epidemiology. Series in psychosocial epidemiology, Vol. 8. (pp. 247-266). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Segal, N.L., Wilson, S.M., Bouchard, T.J., & Gitlin, D.G. (1995). Comparative grief experiences of bereaved twins and other bereaved relatives. Personality & Individual Differences, 18(4), 511-524. Tellegen, A., Lykken, D.T., Bouchard, T.J., Wilcox, K.J. et al. (1988). Personality similarity in twins reared apart and together. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 54(6), 1031-1039. Waller, N.G., Bouchard, T.J., Lykken, D.T., Tellegen, A., & et al. (1993). Creativity, heritability, familiality: Which word does not belong? Psychological Inquiry, 4(3), 235-237. Waller, N.G., Kojetin, B.A., Bouchard, T.J., Lykken, D.T., & et al. (1990). Genetic and environmental influences on religious interests, attitudes, and values: A study of twins reared apart and together. Psychological Science, 1(2), 138-142. ________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 16:26:01 +0100 Reply-To: Ian Pitchford Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ian Pitchford Subject: MARGARET MEAD MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In 'Sociobiology Sanitized' Val Dusek claims: "The discrediting of Mead was an important step in the propagation of sociobiology in America. Shortly after Mead's death, Derek Freeman published a book (1983), largely prepared decades before, that he had feared to make public while she was still alive to reply. Freeman claimed to show that Mead's account of sexual freedom in Samoa was a myth. The press widely publicized Freeman's claims. Evolutionary psychologists casually refer to Freeman's work as disproving Mead's claims that sexual and violent behavior are culturally relative. There was a general celebration of Freeman's discrediting of a woman who had been so influential in the scientific societies and popular press. Neglected were the facts that Freeman had studied a different village than that studied by Mead, and studied it four decades later than Mead, during which time a U. S. military based had influenced the behavior of Samoans who worked on the base(for example, rape and assaults had become more frequent). Also, Freeman re-interviewed some of Mead's subjects decades later in the role of an honorary chieftain. An elderly woman might give a different report concerning her teen-age sexual activity to a community official and priest than she would have confided to another young woman at the time. Freeman in his earlier work on Iban agriculture (which contains some hasty racial generalizations) (1970 para 59) bragged that he had 'devious" ways of getting his subjects to say what he wanted.(1970, para 63). Nonetheless, Mead was portrayed as a silly female who had naively believed in a good human nature, while Freeman was the objective male scientist. Some journalists referred to "Miss Mead" and "Professor Freeman" despite the fact that Mead had many more academic honors than her critic. In fact the detached, supposedly Popperian Freeman had many axes to grind and was as committed to sexual repression, (including being outraged by the display of human genitals on statues in a public park) as Mead was committed to sexual freedom. Writers from psychologist Steve Pinker to science popularizer Martin Gardner write as if Mead was victim of a hoax, and anthropological relativism of cultural and mores is thus totally discredited." ______ Ian writes: This is the version of events kindly provided by Hiram Caton editor of "The Samoa Reader: Anthropologists Take Stock" ( Lanham: University Press of America, 1990) ______ Dusek writes: 'The discrediting of Mead was an important step in the propagation of sociobiology in America'. Eight years separate the publication of Sociobiology (1975) and Margaret Mead and Samoa (1983). Sociobiology was well established by 1983. Wilson welcomed Freeman's refutation, and of course he viewed it as contributing significantly to the correction he espoused. Dusek doesn't report that Mead, by the force of her authority, stopped a 1975 resolution at the annual AAA meeting condeming sociobiology as racist, sexist, and elitist. She chided the childishness of the condemners and warned that the resolution would make the profession look foolish. "Shortly after Mead's death, Derek Freeman published a book (1983), largely prepared decades before, that he had feared to make public while she was still alive to reply". This canard was trotted out many times during the controversy. It's at variance with the facts of Freeman's long relation with Mead. On a number of occasions he conveyed directly to her the evidence for his disagreement. In August 1978, he wrote offering to send the first completed chapter of the manuscript that would become his book. An assistant responded that she was ill; in November Mead died (Caton, 204). Four years isn't a 'short time after Mead's death'. Dusek writes: 'There was a general celebration of Freeman's discrediting of a woman who had been so influential in the scientific societies and popular press. Neglected were the facts that Freeman had studied a different village than that studied by Mead, and studied it four decades later than Mead, during which time a U. S. military base had influenced the behavior of Samoans who worked on the base(for example, rape and assaults had become more frequent)'. This is confused. Freeman covered in great detail the differences that might emerge from the difference of time and place of their respective studies. One important piece of evidence was records of the Samoan court in the incidence of rape in Western Samoa at the time of Mead's study. It was the third most common offence and cases were reported in the Samoa Times (Freeman, 1983, 249). Had Mead consulted these records she could not have written, as she did, that rape was 'unthinkable' in Samoa. BTW, the naval base in Pago Pago has nothing to do with it. Military personnel did not venture inland. There was a dispensary and an anchorage on Mead's island (Ta'u). In fact, she lived at the dispensary as a member of the Holt household, and she was understood to be under the protection of the Admiral of the US Fleet (Samoans are very rank conscious). But her book mentions none of this 'taint' and it portrays Samoans as pristine pagans. Their puritanical Christian faith is scarcely mentioned and plays no role whatever in her story, nor could it, since that alone gives the lie to her myth. [Ian adds: US military government had been in place for over twenty years when Mead arrived in Samoa, knowledgeable in some aspects of Samoan culture but totally ignorant of its language; Christianity had been firmly established for over eighty years.] Dusek writes: 'Also, Freeman re-interviewed some of Mead's subjects decades later in the role of an honorary chieftain. An elderly woman might give a different report concerning her teen-age sexual activity to a community official and priest than she would have confided to another young woman at the time'. This is a garbled account of the testimony of Fa'apua Fa'amu Togia, Mead's busom companion during her sojourn. As the ceremonial virgin (taupo) of her village, Fa'apua was never unchaperoned. Her sworn testimony was given to Leulu F Vaa, a university lecturer, not to Freeman. For a detailed account, Freeman 1991; brief account Caton, 162-64. Dusek: 'Nonetheless, Mead was portrayed [by Freeman] as a silly female who had naively believed in a good human nature, while Freeman was the objective male scientist'. Freeman devotes 130 pages to setting the scene for Mead's research. It is primarily background on Mead's university studies in the milieu of anti-nature, anti-genetics opinion among humanists of the day. Freeman's Mead is not a silly young woman but a carrier, subsequently prophet, of cultural determinism, which is the great antagonist of Freeman's interactive paradigm. Dusek: 'In fact the detached, supposedly Popperian Freeman had many axes to grind and was as committed to sexual repression, (including being outraged by the display of human genitals on statues in a public park) as Mead was committed to sexual freedom'. This is burlesque. Freeman believes that Samoan upbringing is far too repressive. The repression vs freedom theme arises from the encounter between MM and her subjects. When they came to know how she had depicted them, they were deeply embarrassed and scandalized by her gross inversion of their mores. Mead's subjects were Christians of very severe sexual morality. Her conduct while among them, which included an affair with a young man stigmatized as a libertine, caused them great distress because they had bestowed on her the high honor of ceremonial virgin (taupo). Because of all this, they wished for Derek to 'set the record straight'. BTW, >taupo< (ceremonial virgin) is spelled with a 'u'', thus, taupou. Mead accepted the title although as a married woman she wasn't eligible. Her hosts didn't know that she was married. When they long after learned of this, they considered it to be a gross betrayal of their hospitality (in addition to the betrayal involved in her affair with a stigmatized miscreant). It signifies something about the bias of Freeman's critics that no one paused to note that Mead's conduct as an anthropologist was disgraceful of herself and her hosts. References Caton, H. 1990. The Samoa Reader: Anthropologists Take Stock. Lanham: University Press of America. Freeman, D. 1983. Margaret Mead and Samoa. Cambridge: Harvard. Freeman, D. 1991. There's Tricks i' th' World: An Historical Analysis of the Researches of Margaret Mead, Visual Anthropology Review 7: 103-128. _________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 17:53:34 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: CALL FOR PAPER Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" * * * * * CALL FOR PAPERS * * * * * * * "Philosophical Writings" UK based philosophy journal invites submissions for Issue No. 9 Fall 1998. The journal is especially interested in articles, reviews, dialogues or reminiscences presented in an unusual format; we encourage postgraduate students and "new" academics to send us samples of their work. Please send two printed copies with 3.5" disc; articles up to 8000 words, reviews up to 2000 words to: The Editors, Phil. Writings Philosophy Department University of Durham 50 Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HN TEL 191-374-7641 FAX 374-7635 e-mail: D.M.Philips or S.P.James@durham.ac.uk ------------------------------------------------ Issue no. 8 Summer 1998 now available: Ole Skilleas (Bergen) "Critique of Writing in Plato's Phaedrus" Todd Long (Swansea) "A Selective Defense of Tolstoy's What is Art" Richard Taylor (Durham) "On Natural Suffering" Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe (Aberystwyth) "Higher Stages of Consciousness in the Theatre" David Large (Newcastle) "Brief Intro. to Ecological Philosophy" David Rose (Glasgow) "From Production to Consumption" Reviews, Features, Cartoons, Events. subscription: L15 per year for three issues, L6 for sample. institutions: L45 per year for libraries or departments. FREE! individual subscription if you manage to persuade your dept. or library to subscribe at the full price. Send your remittance to the address above. __________________________________________ In making a personal reply, please put in Subject line: Message for Bob Young Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk or r.m.young@sheffield.ac.uk 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837. Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/index.html Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/ 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 07:53:40 EDT Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Valdusek@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Bouchard Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ed Remler writes: << Now we are at a point at which something may be learned if Val Dusek explains why his comments on Bouchard leave a (to me) misleading impression of this work. 1) Was he unaware of that Bouchard's work has been replicated? 2) Does he believe that all this work is similarly tainted by ideology? 3) Was it an oversight? 4) Did he purposefully misrepresent the situation for a higher good? 5) Is Pinker misleading? 6) ...? Ed Remler>> Yes, after 1987 Bouchard's work began to be published in peer reviewed journals. However, from 1980-1987 his work was not published in peer reviewed journals, despite its appearance in almost all of the major news media in the USA, including major city newpapers, weekly news magazines, and popular science magazines. He also misled NBC reporter Bazell about the publication status of his work. In the political news section of Science magazine his work was covered by Constance Holden (a critic of Head Start and defender of the Pioneer Fund) as major breakthrough in a way that would lead the casual reader to believe that it was published. Meanwhile the peer reviewers in the science article part of the journal were rejecting his work. I mention most of the briefly in my article on the SaC website. My own belief is that Pioneer funding plus the popular media publicity concerning the "eerie" anecdotes was what led Science and various psychology journals to later publish his stuff as respectable. Bouchard essentially circumvented peer review through the popularity of his anecdotes. Often when he speaks to scientific audiences, at colloquia, etc. he presents only or mostly his annecdotes, knowing that they are so striking he does not need to present statistics and other boring scientific stuff. As for ideological bias, at least several other of the twin and adoption studies groups, such as the one in Texas are indeed ideological biased. (See the story about the Texas one, which can be further elaborated on with documentation.) Even now that Bouchard's group has published in respectable media, why have they not produced their decade-long promised book which would give the kind of documentation of the separateness of the twins, which is the crucial point of contention (No one is claiming that his well-meaning grad students or postdocs is faking blood-pressure tests Burt-style.) Bouchard claims he is not responsible for the overwhelming popular media coverage of the twins annecdotes. He also claims he can't show his data to critics because of the laws on the protection of human subjects. But obviously he could strip his biographies of names and places or make up fictional ones as is often done in sociological or anthropological research. I being logged off by AOL and can't store on a guest machine, so this is enough for the moment. Val Dusek ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 08:17:00 EDT Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Valdusek@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Bouchard Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ed Remler <