From: "Tim Murphy" <info-AT-cinox.demon.co.uk> Subject: BHA: BIOLOGICAL REDUCTIONISM Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:28:27 -0000 Shiv, You said "We need to look at the right places for the answers - the answers lie in biological reductionism". This is a dangerous statement. Worse... any generalised reductionism closes off other possibilities. You can't tie down many aspects of biology (like human behaviour, which is highly emergent) in the same way as a simple electronic circuit on a test bench. Many things can at first site be explained by biological reductionism (BR) like measles for instance... but only at face value because there are many other factors in the relationship between measles and humans. There is a biological basis to that but an economic, social and generally epidemiological basis as well. You can't just reduce it to the virus and human genetics. Wither dialectics? Why do I have to be so "scholarly" Shiv? Is it because you can't explain things in normal language or it is because the complexity of your argument requires a specific technical language? Or is it because BR is a philosophers stone for you? Why do you exclude the USA from fascism during WW2 when you quote the example of the Japanese people? The USA has a very psychopathic and disorded culture but even there many people are NOT like this. Are you going to use a biological counter argument to explain that? Tim --------- --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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