The "threat" posed by Sociobiology

[Conquer or Die]

Sociobiology is the explanation of human behavior in an social context. That is that social behavior through statistics (sociology) are biologically explained. Human beings are selfish, ergo human beings derive their social activities on such a basis. The ammunition for the conservative movement is thus: Selfish homogenism and exclusion and conquering the lesser are fundamental traits akin to the species and they provide for the outlet of naturally determined tendencies. It is aristocratic for society to function on the basis of control through a hereditary elite that have proved their dominance.

Sociobiology as a neutral term, however, is merely the biological study of human behavior. Mutual aid was a book that emphasized the cooperation of people in society.

I have a few questions:

1. Does Sociobiology necessarily draw conservative conclusions?

2. Assuming the conservative interpretation is true of current behavior: Can the natural elite be replaced by the new collective and maintain a functioning society?

3. Will Social-Darwinists, Socio-Biologists, and Objectivists be sent (without police protection) to explain their natural superiority to mine workers in West Virginia?

[mikelepore]

Sociobiology is the explanation of human behavior in an social context. That is that social behavior through statistics (sociology) are biologically explained.

If behavior were biologically determined, why would society have a set of law books that fills a whole wall full of shelves to define how people are going to behave? If the origin of some behavioral procedures is that they were adopted by decisions made in any kind of committee or agency, how could their origin be biological?


Human beings are selfish, ergo human beings derive their social activities on such a basis.

The second part of the sentence after the comma doesn't logically follow from the first part. I also believe that human beings are naturally selfish, but this fact is no obstacle whatsoever to creating a cooperative and socialist society, because the functioning of society isn't based on how human beings are naturally. The functioning of society is based on the kind of organization or set of procedures that have been implemented for doing things.

That last statement is very easy to prove. It is demonstrated by the fact that workers who are working side-by-side in the same company act as though they are on the same side, and cooperate, while workers who work for different companies act as though they are on opposite sides, and compete. A boundary that is purely an institutional form makes the whole determination of whether the people in that situation are going to cooperate or compete.


The ammunition for the conservative movement is thus: Selfish homogenism and exclusion and conquering the lesser are fundamental traits akin to the species and they provide for the outlet of naturally determined tendencies.

No society would ever have the goal of providing an outlet for people's natural tendencies, without regard to the perceived desirability of the outcomes. With the bell-shaped distribution of all personality types, there are some people whose brains are so constructed that committing rape and murder is consistent with their personalities. Society is going to restrict those violent individuals' avenues for self-fulfillment in any event, so why not also take away the greedy capitalist's outlet for self-fulfillment by abolishing the money investment process? Those who say no to this last suggestion are, in effect, agreeing with me that society will always draw a line over which human behavior may not cross, and they are merely disagreeing about where to place the line.


It is aristocratic for society to function on the basis of control through a hereditary elite that have proved their dominance.

The one and only hereditary aspect of social dominance is the chapter of written laws called "probate", which is the procedure for wealthy people who die to leave their wealth to their heirs.


Sociobiology as a neutral term, however, is merely the biological study of human behavior. Mutual aid was a book that emphasized the cooperation of people in society.

In my opinion, Kropotkin's book _Mutual Aid_ doesn't offer a very good argument. Okay, so a whole bunch of crabs will come to the aid of one crab that has been flipped over on its back, etc. Human society doesn't operate according to instincts. Human society operates according to written plans, such as constitutions, charters, and handbooks. At one time in history, the social plans were entirely verbal; in modern time they take written form. Write competition into the plan and people will compete; write cooperation into the plan and people will cooperate.


I have a few questions:

1. Does Sociobiology necessarily draw conservative conclusions?

2. Assuming the conservative interpretation is true of current behavior: Can the natural elite be replaced by the new collective and maintain a functioning society?

This is a dispute about who bears the burden of proof. I say: If they assert that biological characteristics determine social results, let them prove their hypothesis. But if the powerful and wealthy people who claim to be naturally superior also command a political regime to backup their rule with guns, that must lead us to the conclusion that there is nothing natural about their rule.


3. Will Social-Darwinists, Socio-Biologists, and Objectivists be sent (without police protection) to explain their natural superiority to mine workers in West Virginia?

They would probably say that they don't associate with "the little people." Elitists generally refer to human beings in this way: "Is that person 'somebody', or 'just a nobody'?"

[Crux]

No more so than darwinism would necessarily lead to "social darwinism" of the fascist kind.

[Raúl Duke]

I think social-biology (now going as evolutionary psychology) has lost a bit of steam...
in my opinion. Perhaps not completely defeated/put into the dust-bin of history but not in vogue as Objectivism and libertarianism has slightly become.

[¿Que?]

My interpretation of sociobiology is somewhat like taking out Marx's economic base, and putting in genetics in its place. I find I am a bit skeptical of that mostly because if vulgar Marxism, or even certain interpretations of functionalism (also considered to have conservative implications) leave little room for human agency, then genetic reductionism (what I call it) is absolutely hopeless in this respect.

[Agnapostate]

Sociobiology need not imply support for rightist politics, as so many people have mistakenly assumed. Kropotkin did essentially pioneer the field in his Mutual Aid, as the OP mentioned, and Peter Singer explored how leftism (though not necessarily socialism), could incorporate evolutionary psychology in A Darwinian Left.

[Ocean Seal]

Human beings are selfish, ergo human beings derive their social activities on such a basis.
Doesn't that belong in every capitalist argument ever made.



1. Does Sociobiology necessarily draw conservative conclusions?
No, but we shouldn't think too much of it. I don't really see it as a very valuable science. It draws too much from emotion. Science is about answering questions dispassionately yet this research is about as biased as possible. If you look for your answer you will find it here.


2. Assuming the conservative interpretation is true of current behavior: Can the natural elite be replaced by the new collective and maintain a functioning society?
Sure, we've replaced several elites. Wasn't the whole superiority argument used during the bourgeoisie revolutions by the reactionary feudal class? The bourgeoisie are no different, when the time for their fall comes they too will be replaced.


3. Will Social-Darwinists, Socio-Biologists, and Objectivists be sent (without police protection) to explain their natural superiority to mine workers in West Virginia?
:laugh:

[heiss93]

Honestly the Sociobiological explanation for altruism based on tit for tat and kin selection is not so different from Kropotkin's mutualism. For the most part Communism is based on biological reciprocal altruism not on self-sacrifice in the sense used by anti-altruists. The anti-altruists define altruism narrowly as an act that harms one's own genetic survival. This is a relatively rare form of altruism. It could perhaps be called heroism. Running into a burning building to save a stranger's child. The other form of self-sacrifice is serving free-loaders. This is the conservative caricature of the welfare state. But Communism is based on he who does not work, neither shall he eat. So acts of complete self-sacrifice are relatively rear, and rightly honored. But mutualism and cooperation as opposed to egoistic individualism are the key to survival. So despite the opinion of EO Wilson, Ridley and Dawkins, it is no "threat" to Marxism. JBS Haldane and Smith, the ones who did the actual math were both CPGB members. IT seems the popularizers are right-wing but the scientists who developed gene-based evolution were far left-wing.

I am not impressed by Singer's Darwinian left. I read it as him admitting the Right is logically right about everything, but lets help our biological inferiors because we feel bad.

The main "threat" I see is its use in oppressing women and its use as a caveman club against feminism. See evopsych bingo- http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d98/sabotabby/evopsychbingo.jpg

The attack on feminism needs to be countered. But far as economics goes it is mainly a threat to purely individualistic systems of liberalism and libertarianism. Communitarian based systems such as socialism are bolstered. Before genes, the main conflict was between group and individual selection. I think gene-based selection supports group more than individual. It points to the need for social cooperation. Even on feminism, where it is most reactionary, in some way it can be re-interpreted SUPPORT for radical over liberal feminism.

That being said I DO consider sociobiology and evopsych as ideologies and not as sciences to be incredibly dangerous and toxix. In fact far more so than the Religious Right.

Kropotkin's work is famous. But you might also want to see Kautsky. http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1906/ethics/ch04.htm

Despite preceding the rise of Mendelian genetics and the synthesis, and some reliance on group selection I think Kautsky's original Darwinian left holds out much better than Singer's.


Found this post at marxmail

Loren Graham in his 1987 book *Science, Philosophy,
and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union*, amongst
other things noted that E.O. Wilson's writings on
sociobiology received a rather surprisingly favorable
reception in the Soviet Union, despite the fact that
Wilson's theories concerning the biological roots
of human behavior seemed to go against some
basic tenets of Marxism. Graham notes that one reason
for the favorable reception from Soviet scholars was
due to Wilson's discussion of the evolutionary
origins of altruism. Wilson drew upon the work
of William Hamilton to argue that Darwinian evolution
did not unilaterally favor selfishness, but rather
altruism itself might be favored by natural selection
on the basis of "kin selection" and "inclusive fitness."
If as Hamilton (and later George Williams, John
Maynard Smith, and RIchard Dawkins) argued we
take a "genes' eye" view of evolution, then natural
selection might be seen, under certain circumstances,
to sometimes favor altruistic actions by individual
organisms over selfishness. While altruism might by putting at
risk the survival of the altruistic organism reduce
the Darwinian fitness of that individual, if the organism's
actions benefited other organisms that were genetically
related to it (thus sharing genes with them) the Darwinian
fitness of that organism's genes might actually be
enhanced, even at the expense of the altruistic
organism. Thus if an organism sacrifices itself to
save the lives of its siblings, those siblings will
be able to pass on to future generations, genes
which they shared with their deceased brother
or sister, so the result might be a net enhancement
of the Darwinian fitness of the deceased altruist.
>From this standpoint, the selfishness of genes
can lead to altruistic behavior on the part of
living organisms. And Hamilton and other biologists
including Wilson, suggested that this hypothesis
could be used to explain the existence of cooperation.

Wilson suggested that Hamilton's kin selection
hypothesis could provide a Darwinian explanation
of the altruistic and cooperative behaviors we observe
in human beings. This type of theorizing struck a nerve
among many Russian and Soviet readers of
his work, since there had been in Russian biology,
a tradition going back to the work of the Russian
biologist and anarchist theoretician, Petr Kropotkin,
which argued for the evolutionary origins of mutual
aid in both human and nonhuman species. Kroptotkin
had presented his theories concerning the evolutionary
origins of mutual aid as a rebuttal to the social Darwinism
that was popular in his day. Kropotkin thought that
Darwin and his successors had overemphasized
the importance of competition in evolution, to the
exclusion of cooperation. Wilson's theorizing on
altruism was seen as fitting in with this long
standing tradition in Russian biological thought.
While Kropotkin, as an anarchist, was no Marxist,
his work on mutual aid was seen in the Soviet
Union as representing an interpretation of
evolution that was congruent with Marxism,
and as constituting a refutation of the
social Darwinist interpretations of evolutionary
biology that were favored by bourgeois ideologists.

Graham notes that Wilson's *Sociobiology* received
a favorable reviews in some of the leading philosophical
and scientific journals of the Soviet Union. Other
reasons for this surprisingly favorable reception
(given that Wilson's work was harshly criticized
in the West by such writers as Richard Lewontin
and Stephen Jay Gould) include the fact that Wilson
was willing to entertain hypotheses concerning the genetic
roots of human behaviors like altruism. During
Stalin's time and Khruschchev's, Lysenkoism
had been the official orthodoxy concerning
genetics, and Mendelism was banned.
After the fall of Lysenkoism in 1965 (due to
a campaign that spearheaded by scientists
including Andrei Sakharov), there was a strong
reaction among Soviet intellectuals against
anything that smacked of Lysenkoism or other
dogmas of the Stalinist period, and in favor of
ideas that emphasized Mendelian genetics or
other theories that had previously been banned.
So since Wilson's sociobiology was obviously
grounded in Mendelian genetics, that in of itself,
would have been sufficient to guarantee that it
would have received at least a respectful reading
from many Soviet intellectuals.

Also, at the time that Wilson's work on sociobiology
was first being published, Soviet intellectuals were
revisiting the whole nature/nurture debate concerning
human behavior. Soviet thought had since the
1920s been strongly nurturist. Environmentalist
or naturist ideas pervaded Soviet psychology,
pedagogy, criminal justice and social policy in
general. If people acted badly, it was assumed that
the causes lied with the environmental conditions
under which they had been raised and that the solution
to social problems like crime, alcoholism, and social
deviance lied with changing people's environments
through radical social reform, which in the USSR meant
the construction of a socialist society. By the 1970s,
this nurturism was being increasingly questioned in the
Soviet Union, since among other things it was apparent
that problems like crime, drunkenness, shiftlessness
etc. were still very much feature of Soviet life, despite
the fact that the Communists had been in power for more
than a half-century. Crime was after all supposed to disappear
under socialism but it still existed in the Soviet Union.
Given this reality, orthodox Marxist explanations of crime
implied that if crime was still a reality in Soviet life then
this must have been due to Soviet society not conforming
to socialist ideals. Some leading Soviet scholars
made that very argument including the Soviet geneticist
Nikolai Dubinin along with two coauthors in the
book *Genetics, Behavior, Responsibility* who
attributed the persistence of crime in Soviet society
to the incompleteness in the building of communism.
Dubinin and his coauthors pointed out that economic
inequalities were still pervasive in the Soviet Union,
and the deprivation was still widespread. In short they
applied a rather orthodox Marxist analysis of crime to
Soviet society, which led them to make a rather devastating
critique of Soviet society from a Marxist standpoint.
Not too surprisingly this book displeased many of the
Soviet authorities.

Many Soviet administrators, jurists, police officials
and others were becoming increasingly attracted to
hereditarian explanations of crime which attributed its causation
to genetic factors. If some people are, because
of their genetic heritages, predisposed to criminal
behavior, then this would tend to exonerate Soviet
institutions from responsibility, whereas more orthodox Marxist
explanations tended to indict them. Hence,
some Soviet authorities, at least were willing
to jettison portions of Marxist orthodoxy, if by doing
so this would exonerate Soviet institutions from
responsibility for crime and other social problems.
This was not an entirely new phenomenon in
the Soviet Union. B.F. Skinner had noted that
the changing fortunes of Pavlovianism in the
USSR could be explained along similar lines.
Thus, in *Beyond Freedom & Dignity*, Skinner
wrote:

"Communist Russia provided and interesting case
history in the relation between environmentalism and
personal responsibility, as Raymond Bauer has pointed
out. Immediately after the revolution the government
could argue that if many Russians were uneducated,
unproductive, badly behaved, and unhappy, it was
because their environment had made them so.
The new government would change the environment,
making use of Pavlov's work on conditioned reflexes,
and all would be well. But by the early thirties the government
had its chance, and many Russians were still not
conspicuously better informed, more productive,
better behaved, or happier. The official line was then
changed, and Pavlov went out of favor. A strongly
purposive psychology was substituted: it was up to
the Russian citizen to get an education, work productively,
behave well, and be happy. The Russian educator was
to make sure that he would accept this responsibility,
but not by conditioning him. The successes of the
Second World War restored confidence in the earlier
principle, however; the government had been
successful after all. It might not yet be completely
effective,but it was moving in the right direction.
Pavlov came back into favor."

By the 1970s and 1980s confidence of the type
that Skinner had referred to was disappearing
in the Soviet Union, and in some quarters this
loss of confidence in the power to improve
the human condition by changing social
environments took the form of the acceptance
of theories that emphasized the role of genes
in causing crime and other forms of social
deviance. Wilson's writings on sociobiogy
could be seen as fitting in with this trend too.

So sociobiology had appeal to scientists
interested in Darwinian explanations of
human behavior, it had appeal to Soviet liberals
who were in rebellion against Lysenkoism
and other dogmas left over from Stalin's time,
it also had some appeal to Soviet administrative
types who were seeking hereditarian explanations
of social problems. It was also taken up by
right-wing nationalists who were rejecting
Marxism and who thought that it might lend
support to their own nationalist and even
racist ideas.

It should be noted that while much of the
initial reception of Wilson's writings on
sociobiology in the Soviet Union was
favorable, there was some criticism too.
The geneticist, Dubinin, who was mentioned
above in connection with his defence of
Marxist explanations of crime, was early on
a critic of sociobiology. He thought that
attempts to explain human altruism in
terms of innate factors were just as
mistaken as earlier attempts to similarly
explain human aggression. Wilson,
in his view, was repeating the old error
of attempting to "biologize" man, thereby
ignoring his nature as a social animal.
Later when E.O. Wilson and Charles
Lumsden published their book,
*Genes, Mind, and Culture* where they
explicitly criticized Marxism, the reception
was less favorable, especially given that
Wilson & Lumsden attacked Marxism as
being akin to Lamarckianism, which struck
a raw nerve among some Soviet writers
since this implied that Marxism was
somehow directly tied to Lysenkoism.
This time, Wilson's work was subjected
to the sorts of criticisms that his work
had been receiving in the West from
people like Lewontin, Gould, and the
activist group, Science for the People.
On the other hand, it is clear that many
people in the Soviet Union remained
favorable to Wilson. And that is a
phenomenon that seems to have been
indicative of the shift to the right that
was already taking place among many
Soviet intellectuals.

Jim F.