Re: Patriarchy: Re: What Matriarchy?
Bryant (mycol1@unm.edu)
15 Aug 1996 10:17:39 -0600
In article <3213367C.7341@megafauna.com>,
Stephen Barnard <steve@megafauna.com> wrote:
>>
>>Another very influential theoretical biologist who deserves more popular
>>recognition is John Maynard Smith. It doesn't hurt that he has leftist
>>politics, so his motives are less likely to be questioned.
Interesting, how many sociobiologists and fellow travelers, far from
being the reactionaries folks like Gould assert they are, express leftist
sympathies.
Haldane was a Communist, which may actually have been why, even after his
wry comment that he'd give up his life for "three full sibs or six first
cousins" (hope I got that right), he never developed inclusive fitness
theory. I think that Haldane probably understood the explanatory power of
altruism toward relatives contained in his joke, but as a communist, probably
didn't feel to comfortable explaining human altruism in that (genetically
selfish) manner. Maybe I'm wrong: in his essay "So Cleverly Kind an
Animal," even Gould concedes the explanatory power of inclusive fitness
theory in explaining human kindness.
Earlier (this year?), Joel was venerating Gould as a progressive and
slamming (black panther sympathizer) Robert Trivers as an "imperialist" or
"reactionary" right-winger because of his large role in the development of
human sociobiology. It was classic timing on Joel's part: as he wrote about
the Saintly Gould and Demonic, Reactionary Trivers, Gould was sitting on
his ass in Harvard while Trivers immunized poor children in the Jamaican
countryside!!
I worked for another supposedly reactionary "bad guy" of sociobiology,
Randy Thornhill, for a couple of years. I'm sitting below his Dr. Martin
Luther King poster, right now, in his lab. I found his politics to be
left of my own fairly liberal views. I wonder if there *are* any
right-wing sociobiologists, come to think of it.
Bryant
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