Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 12:25:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: White men et al.(reply to Joe Flanagan)


Joe,  
Your description of how the human male operates is
very reductive and that is why you make the
evolutionary explanation sound like nonsense. In
biological terms, it is more likely that what is at
play is far more dynamic and complex.

However, you do have a point regarding general, all
purpose explanations that are offered by evolutionary
psychologists and others. The 'just so stories'
approach is already experiencing a much deserved
backlash from the scientific community.

The point I was trying to raise is that some aspect of
the phenomenon of racism might have a genetic
component. 
You stated:
> As far as I know, there is no
> necessary better advantage in
> killing off members of another tribe because they
> threaten your resources
> than COOPERATING with that tribe in order to learn
> new or better
> techniques to increase those resources--better
> hunting techniques,
> agricultural practices, etc. 

Well, this version sounds wonderful on paper. In fact,
it would not stretch our imagination to imagine a
breed of intelligent creatures putting this principal
of cooperatively into action to such an extent that
their entire civilisation would be based on it (I am
sure such creatures were featured once or twice on
Star Treck). However, our history shows that we are
not such creatures. Conflict between different races
has cropped up all over the planet at various points
in time. Racism is certainly not a thing perpetuated
exclusively by 'whites' against 'blacks'. All humans
are guilty.
When you have such a widespread behaviour, you have to
wonder whether it has some genetic component. This
does not mean that you just assume it does and move on
(a mistake many evolutionists make). The phenomenon
has to be studied and we should not fear what the
outcome may be. If it is not to our taste, then so be
it. However, I believe we need to know.
Further, and here I am anticipating future criticism,
it is paramount to remember that saying a phenomenon
has a 'genetic component' does not amount to
marble-cold determinism. Genes are there to interact
with the environment. Predicting the outcome of that
interaction is harder than determining what the
weather would be like in twenty years from now.

--- Joseph Flanagan III
<flanagan-AT-odin.english.udel.edu> wrote:
> Actually, I don't mean this as an attack on WF, and
> I don't believe he
> subscribes to racist evolutionary thinking. But I
> think there is a real
> danger in using genetics to determine either present
> behavior or past
> events--it really becomes an example of circular
> reasoning, as I think the
> example of "island races" illustrates. It
> naturalizes human behaviour in a
> way I think is dubious. Take, for example, arguments
> concerning the
> evolutionary explanation for promiscious male
> sexuality. We have all
> heard, I am sure, the argument that men are
> "naturally" more promiscious
> than women because it is in their advantage to
> spread their "seed" in as
> many places as possible and thus maximize their
> changes of passing on
> their genes (worse form of this logic says there is
> a genetic component to
> rape, to wit, men not powerful enough to compete
> with other men force
> themselves on women).  However, as far as I know, it
> is far from clear
> that 1) a one-time sexual affair is more likely to
> result in pregnancy
> than one that takes place over an extended period of
> time and 2) a child
> in primitive conditions is more likely to reach
> maturity in a one-sex
> family than a two-sex one (i.e if men weren't around
> to protect women,
> would an infant have a better or worse chance to
> reach an age to
> reproduce--or, in the case of rape, would a mother
> devote equal care to
> child--or even not kill it at birth?). This is not
> to say that bourgeous
> nuclear family is in our genes. But one could make
> an "evolutionary"
> argument that says men will stay committed to one
> partner because it
> maximizes the chances for successful (multiple) 
> pregnancies and the
> sexual maturation of its offspring. Same with tribes
> (and, again, I'm
> uncertain, but wouldn't most tribes living within
> close proximity resemble
> one another?) As far as I know, there is no
> necessary better advantage in
> killing off members of another tribe because they
> threaten your resources
> than COOPERATING with that tribe in order to learn
> new or better
> techniques to increase those resources--better
> hunting techniques,
> agricultural practices, etc. Most "popular"
> evolutionary explanations have
> an in-built bias in them that assumes contemporary
> aggressive male
> behavior is the natural end-point of evolution.  But
> that is a projection
> into the past to explain contempory or modern
> behaviour.  Evolutionary
> explanations, however, can't work like logical
> argumentation (you can't
> trace the origin by simply moving backwards), nor
> are they teleological.
> (But, again, I'm neither a biologist or geneticist,
> so I am curious what
> others have to say). Joe
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list
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