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> I still don't know what about Wilson's work was supposedly "problematic". To oversimplify slightly, his detractors have a deep ideological commitment to the

• kofejnik 5y ago
  … but also, at the same time, sexual orientation is predetermined genetically (“born this way”) and isn’t socially influenced in any way at all.
  • amanaplanacanal 5y ago
    I think you forgot the nine months spent in the pre-natal environment.
    • goatlover 5y ago
      The pre-natal environment isn't socially determined. It's part of the organism's biological development.
      • marcan_42 5y ago
        It's partially environmental, and therefore can be socially correlated. We know of many conditions that are caused by changes in pre-natal environment (e.g. folic acid deficiency in the mother causes neural tube defects). Genes you don't get to pick, but everything that happens after fertilization is absolutely impacted by the external environment in many ways.
        • goatlover 5y ago
          The ongoing debate is culture versus biology, with genes being the focus on the biological side. The prenatal environment isn't cultural, although some cultural factors can play a role in the mother's health. Biological factors are always mixed in with the environment, but that doesn't mean the environment in terms of human culture is 100% the determining factor for behavior.
      • kqr 5y ago
        But it accounts for things that seem to be there from birth yet cannot be explained purely by genetics.
• goatlover 5y ago
  Behavioral geneticist Kathryn Paige Harden receives similar criticism for having the temerity to suggest that genes play some statistically significant role in individual behavior. I don't understand why it has to be all or nothing. Surely the reasonable position is that both genes and environment have an intertwining role to play, and we can measure some of that across various psychological studies combined with genetic profiles, on a statistical basis. Paige was on Julia Galef's Rationally Speaking podcast, and her work sounds completely reasonable and hardly controversial. Unless one is ideologically committed to an all or nothing view on genes.
  • 8i3u2iyeghrwo 5y ago
    So, I'll bite. Maybe this is a poor decision given the tenor of the comments here but I'll try to give a contrasting view. Notwithstanding her personal experiences, the position that Harden adopts is somewhat of a strawman, and a favorite of those in the behavior genetics community as it allows them to sidestep problems in the field and draw attention to their own research. I think there's some overlap between the blind spots this entails and what the SA article is pointing to. I say this as someone who studied behavioral ecology (basically sociobiology) in college, and has done research in this area as well as behavior genetics. Before you proceed to comment on Harden, or Wilson, or the SA piece, ask yourself this question: what experimental evidence is there that some gene-based approach to a given sociobehavioral problem in humans in general provides a powerful, rigorous solution to that problem? The answer is pretty obvious. I'm not raising this question to play some methodological "gotcha" card. I think this is a case where the lack not only of experimental evidence, but of a scientific culture that avoids the pursuit of such evidence, says as much about the evidentiary basis of the claims, but also the motives and general orientation toward the problems being discussed. That is, not only is there a lack of experimental evidence regarding sociobiological claim X, Y, or Z in humans as a scientific matter, but the field and its explanations have a paradigm that avoids manipulation or changes of these things as an implicit ideal. The problem that critics have with Harden isn't the focus on genes as explanatory mechanisms, it's the lack of experimental evidence for her claims, and a perspective that sees genes as fixed and as something to be "worked around". Typically in such research you have a model that asserts some "general genetic background" in an individual that has longstanding effects, without specifying such effects or doing any research to mitigate such effects biologically. Take research on educational achievement for example. In Harden's paradigm, the point is to identify individuals based on generic "black box" genetic risk (yes, polymarker risk is black box), and to tailor their educational curriculum and vocational planning around this, to better match their identity. However, if you really truly believed some genetic risk factors were in play, wouldn't you work to mitigate those genetic factors biologically? Via drugs, attempting to outline neurobiological pathways, or whatnot? What about the risk of labeling such individuals incorrectly? Is there any benefit in using "genetics" as an explanatory perspective for an individual, beyond historical status? Research suggests you get the same outcomes if you just use past performance instead, without any assumptions about causality. And there are individuals whose trajectories are anomalous with regard to genetic explanation. Shouldn't we be focused on understanding that? Where this dovetails with criticisms of Wilson is a similar kind of genetic predestination paradigm. Maybe Wilson wasn't deterministic per se, but that's strongly implied by his theories. Even within the field of behavioral ecology, there was a sort of shift toward more cognitive and general-function models that allowed for greater flexibility in behavior. By the point Wilson published his Sociobiology text, it should have been apparent to anyone wading into the literature on human behavior that there were certain sandpits to avoid. Not just politically, but theoretically as well. And this is the racism being referred to. It's an insensitivity to sociocognitive-cultural factors that are paramount in understanding human behavior, at a time when this should have been abundantly clear to anyone studying behavior. It's telling that the responses to claims of racism made in the SA piece are along the lines of "but Wilson was such a kind person" and "such an environmentalist" as if it's not possible to be a strong environmental advocate and racist at the same time. In fact, this is a classic rhetorical device in defenses of racism, regardless of the truth of any claims about Wilson per se. I have respect for Wilson, and think there's a lot about his career to learn from in our current age (note his Wikipedia page says nothing about grant dollars, only his ideas and writings). I do not want to say that Wilson as a person was racist, as I that's a dangerous game to play. I also don't want to defend the SA piece as some pinnacle of writing. But I also don't think the SA piece is entirely unreasonable, and regardless of how one characterizes Wilson as a person, I think there's a fair argument that sociobiology as a paradigm as applied to humans is racist, if for no other reason that it explicitly ignores the sociocultural context critical to understanding human experience. You can handwave about this and say "well sociobiology isn't meant to explain everything" but aren't cognitive-cultural phenomena the crux of its limitations? Would that have really been nonobvious in 1975?
• Panoramix 5y ago
  Aren't most of those things testable? No scientist can choose to believe something is true because it favors the left-wing agenda. Or the right wing for that matter. It's the definition of un-scientific thinking. Now, some topics are extremely charged and one has to be extremely careful on how to present the data not to stir the nest of hornets in either direction.
  • lonelyasacloud 5y ago
    People do what they have to do to preserve themselves, their minds and world views. This includes allowing themselves to be brainwashed into believing nonsense if it's necessary to survive. Scientists are no different. If falsifying results or avoiding certain research areas is what is needed to keep your career - and stay alive - then that's what they will do. It's not a new phenomena, see e.g. Galileo. Arguably the most extreme case of this was in Stalin's Soviet Union, hence the term Lysenkoism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism) for "deliberate distortion of scientific facts or theories for purposes that are deemed politically, religiously or socially desirable." We are thankfully nowhere near the extremes of Stalin's murderous regime. No one is going to put a bullet in anyones skull if they publish anything saying men are better than women, or anything about "race". But, if they do, regardless of if the research is absolutely perfect, there is still a definite risk to employment. How many institutions or companies would employ someone controversial? How many people would self-censor to avoid the controversial? Water down what they found etc? In general risk what puts bread on their table? For my money, if that doesn't limit the spread of ideas and search for truth what does?
• hilbert42 5y ago
  Good summary. It seems to me that from a scientific perspective that having a deep ideological commitment to a given position - no matter what that position is - isn't desirable for all the obvious reasons: bias, negative impacts on truth, accuracy, etc. With ideology having now entered the debate, any chance reaching a common consensus will be greatly prolonged. As discussion and debate over gene expression has been in the high-stakes category both in the scientific community and across much of humanity for decades it would ultimately make sense to get to the scientific truth of the matter. If it eventuates and we learn for certain that human genes are in fact able to express themselves in ways that the vast majority of us humans now find morally repugnant and that such expression manifests in actual behaviour then as a species we'd be forced to deal with the problem head-on rather than sweep it under the carpet (as we now seem to be doing). I've little doubt that those who 'believe that if we accept that human behviour is influenced by our genes, it follows that that certain negative human behaviours like racism and sexism will be excused' are acting from the highest moral motives but to personally denigrate and malign the character of researchers who genuinely report scientific research that purportedly shows negative or undesirable gene expression is, in my opinion, extremely counterproductive. For starters, character assassinations of the type we're now seeing are very likely to deter scientists from entering this field of research or that they ignore researching the field altogether—or perhaps worse—researchers out of fear of being vilified then fail to report the actual findings of their research. I've little doubt that such events have happened in recent decades. Moreover, it's very likely that the character assassinations that have occurred in recent years have been deliberately targeted to deter researchers from pursuing such research and also to persuade funding bodies to deny funding of any such research. After all, a researcher would have to have considerable fortitude and resilience to continue in the light of such attacks on his/her character. Tragically, in the current political climate, it is just not possible to have a sensible nuanced discussion about race, human intelligence, etc. without one's opponents immediately raising the 'racist' moniker and this has been the situation for many decades. Whilst it was very necessary to debunk the dangerous racist propaganda from the 1930s and earlier, stifling discussion on these matters altogether in the sense that it's now politically incorrect to even raise or discuss them will eventually likely lead to dangerous outcomes—outcomes that could come with nasty unintended consequences. Moreover, the reticence to discuss matters of race openly and honestly, the repression of gene research information and the vilification of researchers who report or discuss findings contrary to acceptable political orthodoxy is not unique to this field of endeavour. We are not only witnessing similar repression of ideas across many endeavours but especially so in other areas of science—for instance 'facts' concerning COVID-19 and climate change no longer need be based on scientific truth but 'adjusted' to suit the prevailing politic. I have a foreboding feeling that we seem to be returning to a time not dissimilar that of Galileo's when the Inquisition would send one to prison for possessing or espousing view outside the accepted orthodoxy. The fact that one's views were factually correct being both irrelevant and immaterial in the decision to impose sentence.