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Evolutionary biologists are divided on his work. His own research and published works have been used by racists for example to readily explain the social origin

by dwt204 5y ago

Evolutionary biologists are divided on his work. His own research and published works have been used by racists for example to readily explain the social origins of intelligence, poverty, crime, and violence regarding POC. He never actively fought against such tendencies, even though he was aware that he had become the darling of white nationalists, and even fascists globally. I believe that ALL "traits" can be explained by social environment rather than by biology. I respectfully refer you to many of Gould's work on sociobiology. We are not insects we are human beings.

pdonis 5y ago
While Wilson's extreme position on nature over nurture is certainly open to question, Gould is not a good source to be referencing (and the extreme position of nurture over nature you describe is at least as much open to question). Evolutionary biologists may be "divided" about Wilson, but they're pretty firmly negative about Gould's work in that field. See, for example, here: http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html Btw, Wilson was well aware that humans are not insects. He is the one who said of socialism for humans, "Great idea, wrong species".
- VictorPath 5y ago
  Gould said that one faction of evolutionary biologists were mostly wasting their time, it's not a surprise that they would be firmly negative about that. The letter signers you posted say they are from the center for evolutionary psychology, departments of anthropology and psychology. This is the whole problem, they have one foot (if not both feet) outside of science and in social science.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > Gould said that one faction of evolutionary biologists were mostly wasting their time Yes, he said that, but he said it in the context of giving descriptions of what those evolutionary biologists were doing that were completely disconnected from reality. > The letter signers you posted Are an anthropologist and a psychologist, yes. But the criticisms of Gould that they describe are by no means limited to those fields. The names they list in footnote 2, for example, are a roll call of major evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. Those people are not "outside of science"; they are right in the middle of the scientific field that Gould portrayed himself as an expert on, and they all say Gould's claims are nonsense.
    - User23 5y ago
      Gould himself provides good reason to believe his ideas are nonsense. He began with the result he wanted, and then unsurprisingly got it. My original reasons for writing The Mismeasure of Man mixed the personal with the professional. I confess, first of all, to strong feelings on this particular issue. I grew up in a family with a tradition of participation in campaigns for social justice, and I was active, as a student, in the civil rights movement at a time of great excitement and success in the early 1960s. (p. 36)
- sunstone 5y ago
  Not surprisingly Wilson's comment of "Great idea, wrong species." was about communism for which it was very apt (communism doesn't scale for humans), not socialism. Socialism works well in more than a few very successful countries around the world.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > Not surprisingly Wilson's comment of "Great idea, wrong species." was about communism for which it was very apt (communism doesn't scale for humans), not socialism. Wilson specifically used the term "socialism". The full quote is given here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._O._Wilson#The_Ants,_1990 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._O._Wilson#The_Ants,_1990
    - sunstone 5y ago
      The quote is,"Wilson said in reference to ants "Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species". Which seems a bit odd as Karl Marx was a communist and not a socialist, as far as I know. It's unlikely that Wilson was confused about this two terms so I expect it's just and honest mistake that's been continually repeated with out any one going back to the origininal sources.
      - pdonis 5y ago
        > Which seems a bit odd as Karl Marx was a communist and not a socialist, as far as I know. The two terms were more or less synonymous when Marx wrote. Later ideologues have attempted to differentiate them; whether or not they have succeeded is a matter of opinion.
    - ced 5y ago
      "Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species" It seems that what Marx called socialism is basically communism. By 1888, Marxists employed socialism in place of communism as the latter had come to be considered an old-fashioned synonym for socialism. It was not until after the Bolshevik Revolution that socialism was appropriated by Vladimir Lenin to mean a stage between capitalism and communism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
yucky 5y ago
>I believe that ALL "traits" can be explained by social environment rather than by biology. That probably "feels right" to say, but is it backed up with data? DNA is a real thing, not a social construct.
- drewcoo 5y ago
  Social constructs are real things.
  - animanoir 5y ago
    Social constructs are like farts. We need oxygen, air to breathe, but sometimes someone farts and we breath that too.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  I have a sense this is not actually true, but we want it to be true because it aligns with our modern day morality and ethical code. If we accept the premise that all traits are a result of a social environment rather than a genetic basis, does this only apply to human beings? Other mammals which are not particularly social end up exhibiting traits they never seem to have learned. Both humans and animals exhibit some traits with near universal consistency. How would we explain such a dramatic difference between how species express traits?
dennis_jeeves 5y ago
the__alchemist 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive dismissals, no matter how wrong another comment is or you feel it is. Responding this way just leads to flamewars. We don't want those here because they dumb the forum down and then destroy it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
BitwiseFool 5y ago
>Among Wilson's most controversial works was 1975's "Sociobiology: The New Synthesis" in which he wrote that all human behavior was a product of genetic predetermination, not learned experiences. By coming out in favor of human nature over nurture, he set off a firestorm of criticism, with his harshest opponents accusing him of being racist and sexist. >"I believe that ALL "traits" can be explained by social environment rather than by biology." Now I can definitely understand the controversy of taking the position that all human behavior is a product of genetic determination, but the polar opposite that all human behavior is explained socially/with learned behavior to be just as wrong. I know it's not particularly insightful to admit that it is a combination of both, though.

by dwt204 5y ago

pdonis 5y ago

While Wilson's extreme position on nature over nurture is certainly open to question, Gould is not a good source to be referencing (and the extreme position of nurture over nature you describe is at least as much open to question). Evolutionary biologists may be "divided" about Wilson, but they're pretty firmly negative about Gould's work in that field. See, for example, here: http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html Btw, Wilson was well aware that humans are not insects. He is the one who said of socialism for humans, "Great idea, wrong species".

VictorPath 5y ago
Gould said that one faction of evolutionary biologists were mostly wasting their time, it's not a surprise that they would be firmly negative about that. The letter signers you posted say they are from the center for evolutionary psychology, departments of anthropology and psychology. This is the whole problem, they have one foot (if not both feet) outside of science and in social science.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > Gould said that one faction of evolutionary biologists were mostly wasting their time Yes, he said that, but he said it in the context of giving descriptions of what those evolutionary biologists were doing that were completely disconnected from reality. > The letter signers you posted Are an anthropologist and a psychologist, yes. But the criticisms of Gould that they describe are by no means limited to those fields. The names they list in footnote 2, for example, are a roll call of major evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. Those people are not "outside of science"; they are right in the middle of the scientific field that Gould portrayed himself as an expert on, and they all say Gould's claims are nonsense.
  - User23 5y ago
    Gould himself provides good reason to believe his ideas are nonsense. He began with the result he wanted, and then unsurprisingly got it. My original reasons for writing The Mismeasure of Man mixed the personal with the professional. I confess, first of all, to strong feelings on this particular issue. I grew up in a family with a tradition of participation in campaigns for social justice, and I was active, as a student, in the civil rights movement at a time of great excitement and success in the early 1960s. (p. 36)
sunstone 5y ago
Not surprisingly Wilson's comment of "Great idea, wrong species." was about communism for which it was very apt (communism doesn't scale for humans), not socialism. Socialism works well in more than a few very successful countries around the world.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > Not surprisingly Wilson's comment of "Great idea, wrong species." was about communism for which it was very apt (communism doesn't scale for humans), not socialism. Wilson specifically used the term "socialism". The full quote is given here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._O._Wilson#The_Ants,_1990 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._O._Wilson#The_Ants,_1990
  - sunstone 5y ago
    The quote is,"Wilson said in reference to ants "Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species". Which seems a bit odd as Karl Marx was a communist and not a socialist, as far as I know. It's unlikely that Wilson was confused about this two terms so I expect it's just and honest mistake that's been continually repeated with out any one going back to the origininal sources.
    - pdonis 5y ago
      > Which seems a bit odd as Karl Marx was a communist and not a socialist, as far as I know. The two terms were more or less synonymous when Marx wrote. Later ideologues have attempted to differentiate them; whether or not they have succeeded is a matter of opinion.
  - ced 5y ago
    "Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species" It seems that what Marx called socialism is basically communism. By 1888, Marxists employed socialism in place of communism as the latter had come to be considered an old-fashioned synonym for socialism. It was not until after the Bolshevik Revolution that socialism was appropriated by Vladimir Lenin to mean a stage between capitalism and communism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

yucky 5y ago

>I believe that ALL "traits" can be explained by social environment rather than by biology. That probably "feels right" to say, but is it backed up with data? DNA is a real thing, not a social construct.

drewcoo 5y ago
Social constructs are real things.
- animanoir 5y ago
  Social constructs are like farts. We need oxygen, air to breathe, but sometimes someone farts and we breath that too.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
I have a sense this is not actually true, but we want it to be true because it aligns with our modern day morality and ethical code. If we accept the premise that all traits are a result of a social environment rather than a genetic basis, does this only apply to human beings? Other mammals which are not particularly social end up exhibiting traits they never seem to have learned. Both humans and animals exhibit some traits with near universal consistency. How would we explain such a dramatic difference between how species express traits?

dennis_jeeves 5y ago

the__alchemist 5y ago

dang 5y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive dismissals, no matter how wrong another comment is or you feel it is. Responding this way just leads to flamewars. We don't want those here because they dumb the forum down and then destroy it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

BitwiseFool 5y ago

>Among Wilson's most controversial works was 1975's "Sociobiology: The New Synthesis" in which he wrote that all human behavior was a product of genetic predetermination, not learned experiences. By coming out in favor of human nature over nurture, he set off a firestorm of criticism, with his harshest opponents accusing him of being racist and sexist. >"I believe that ALL "traits" can be explained by social environment rather than by biology." Now I can definitely understand the controversy of taking the position that all human behavior is a product of genetic determination, but the polar opposite that all human behavior is explained socially/with learned behavior to be just as wrong. I know it's not particularly insightful to admit that it is a combination of both, though.