File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2003/bhaskar.0310, message 36


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

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