Re: Race, Science, & Political Correctness

Bob Whitaker (bwhit@conterra.com)
Sat, 07 Dec 1996 23:46:51 -0500

Phil Nicholls wrote:
>
> Bob Whitaker <bwhit@conterra.com> wrote:
> >Phil Nicholls wrote:
> >>
> >> Bob, I have actually read much of Coon's work and as far as I am
> >> concerned Coon was ill-treated by anthropology and by some
> >> anthropologists. Milford Wolpoff's multi-regional hypothesis of
> >> human origins is based in no small part on Coon's work.
>
> >> I will go even farther. I can remember the backlash against
> >> sociobiology by cultural anthropologists and only a fool would believe
> >> that this was not about the politics of cultural anthropology and it's
> >> rejection of anything it say as biological determinism.
>
> >> I remember being part of the graduate student faculty search committee
> >> and how any physical anthropologists whose work suggested any sympathy
> >> to sociobiology was immediately rejected.
>
> >> I can also tell you about Vincint Sarich's class at UC Berkeley being
> >> disrupted by individuals who are uncomfortable about the questions he
> >> asks and being labeled a racist for asking them.
>
> >> Bob, what you are doing is exactly the same as what those students and
> >> anthropologists did. They label anyone who disagrees with them a
> >> bigot, a racists, a biological determinist.
> >>
> >> You label everyone who disagrees with you a "PC Clone."
> >>
> >> How very sad that you have become the thing you hate.
> >>
> >> Phil Nicholls
> >> pnich@digiworldinc.com
> >> "To ask a question, you must first know
> >> most of the answer." Robert Sheckley
>
> > You're making excellent points, but I am afraid that the allowance
> >given to heresy early in the centruy is simply no longer the case in
> >anthropolgy. What you say about the suppresion of sociobiology and of
> >Carleton Coon has been repeatedly and loudly denied by the PC clones in
> >this newsgroup.
>
> Bob, you began this whole think with a rant on Boas which turned out
> to be historically inaccurate. Your point was that anthropology was
> somehow ALWAYS at the call of "the establishment."


I am not quite sure which thing this is that all
Scientific Anthropologists agree I was wrong on this time.
What I said was that Boas went from a fringe and a bit of
a joke in 1939 to the Only True Scientific Anthropologist
in 1945. I remember during my entire youth reading the same
quote, over and over an over in all respectable pyublications,
that modern anthropologists had proven the races were equal.
Period.
This has gone down the same old Memory Hole, of course,
that all discreditted liberal crap goes down, never to be heard
from again, but it was the only point of view when I was in grad
school.
Scientific Anthropology is, in fact, always Politically
Correct, and the 1939-1945 abrupt shift of True Science was just
a rather obvious example.
You are again insisting it is merely being objective,
and the Poltical Correctness is a chance biproduct. It must be
nice to able to believe that kind of thing.
Actually, though, I don't really care what doctrine your
so-called scientific anthropology agrees with this year.
My problem with your so-called "color blindness" is that,
in terms of real world results, you are only interested in doing
it in white majority countries. You demand massive third world
immigration into EVERY white majority country, and ONLY into white
majority countries. You demand your so-called "race" mixing, which
is actually only *white* mixing, and you use public money for busing
and "low-cost"(black) housing to chase down any white escapees.
The best definition I know of *the white race* is that it is
your Politically Correct target. When your academic heroes are
"dealing
with the race problem", they target the white race perfectly.
Your so-called solution to the race problem is always only the
final solution to the white problem.

The fact is
> that anthropology is

The fact is
> that anthropology is always somewhat heretical -- at least a part of
> it is.

NEVER on race.

It seems to try to re-invent itself every 20 years or so.
>
> Sociobiology was not suppressed. There were those who tried but it
> was the exception rather than the rule.

Typical clone Doublethink. It was suppressed but not destroyed,
so it was not suppressed. In your Politically Correct environment, you
wouldn't be called on a silly-ass comment like that, but here you will.

There is even a journal now
> -- Ethology and Sociobiology. A lot of cultural anthropologists
> don't like it, but so what. The fact is that sociobiological models
> can very easily turn ugly and have. We need the opposition to keep
> them from those excesses. Biology is not destiny, it is just
> biology.
>
> Carelton Coon was ill-treated by some anthropologists but he continued
> to teach, was able to publish. Coon's problem was that he was about
> 20 years out of date. No matter how you cut it, racial taxonomies
> are typological. Coon's five racial groups lumped together peoples
> whose phenotypic similarity had more to do with parallel evolution.
> Race was abandoned because it was replaced by better methods of
> studying biological variation and not because of any plot by PC
> clones.
>
> Finally, your "shouting" has nothing to do with my mentioning the
> various incidents and I really doubt if others simply deny that these
> t hings happen.

You "doubt" it because you are Poltically Correct and don't see
what they said -- your faith is impeccable.

The point is that they do not happen often enough to
> justify the hysteria you manifest here.

If think I'm being hysterical, you ought to get on my side of the
fence a while and listen to your academic heroes shriek.

>
> xdd
>
> > If I had not kept shouting, you would not have said what you said in
> >this newsgroup.
> > The simple fact of the matter is that in this day and age, one must
> >call the PC clones repeatedly, because there is no countervailing force
> >inside the academy.
>
> Phil Nicholls
> pnich@digiworldinc.com
> "To ask a question, you must first know
> most of the answer." Robert Sheckley