Comments on: Pursuing the Truth

By: josil

josil — Wed, 20 Oct 2004 21:16:46 +0000

there are well established physiological differences in the bodies (incl. brains)of men and women. and, like all biological critters, there is enormous variability within both of those categories. almost everything else is politics because the scientific content of the so-called “social sciences” is so slim. we were intellectually better off when we called that body of inquiry “social studies” …and as for political science, well…

By: h. e. baber

h. e. baber — Tue, 19 Oct 2004 05:03:14 +0000

and feedback effects will lock in the disadvantageous position of women in the labor market. Is there any evidence for this? I didn’t claim that feedback effects explain the whole thing or deny that there were any innate, biological differences at work—I said that you can’t cite differences in male and female choices as revealing different preferences unless you assume that the male-female playing field is level, which manifestly it is not. The interesting question isn’t whether there are innate psychological male-female differences—their likely are—but whether they are the whole explanation for the difference in the choices men and women make. It seems likely that they don’t since the choices women make change as circumstances change.

By: antirealist

antirealist — Tue, 19 Oct 2004 01:49:36 +0000

The other standout for me was James Scott’s “Seeing Like A State.” I’ve heard this recommended before. Ok, I’ll add it to the pile. Thanks.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Tue, 19 Oct 2004 01:37:29 +0000

I’ll cop to exactly the same sort of excessive generalization that my two posts last night were complaining about. I do think that there needs to be some acknowledgement of a sordid history of both sides here. First we have the all the crap from before the turn of the 20th century onward: the modern notion of race, social darwinism, eugenics, etc. Almost all of this was politically and culturally motivated and bigoted. Then we have the social sciences backlash against these horrors and the establishment of the blank slate dogma. When I came of age in the very early eighties, and as a scientifically literate liberal, feminist, anti-racist, and such, the blank slate paradigm was a core idea of my politics and world view. When Wilson advanced his “sociobiology”, there was a tremendous amount of antagonism against it—it was judged prima facie to be deeply politically regressive in intent and effect. Really, though, nothing Wilson wrote was in retrospect that terribly risible. Of course, then we had all the cultural and political reactionaries jumping on the sociobiology bandwagon and, just as in the past, used naturist arguments to justify their worldview. But, you know, through my adult lifetime I’ve been practically assaulted by tons of science that support a naturist basis for many human behaviors and since I’m emphatically not a dualist, the blank slate paradigm began to look like a convenient fiction to me. Like most reasonable people, it seems to me that either extreme position on the nature/nurture debate is absurd. And, more to the point, I firmly believe that I don’t have to sacrifice my progressive social values to the truth of many naturist positions. In this context, I’m pretty sympathetic to the EP folks moving to “EP” from “sociobiology” in an attempt to depoliticize this stuff. I don’t doubt that many people have hidden agendas both pro and con, but it seems to me that this is a crucial field of study and it’s to everyone’s benefit to try to emphasize the science and deemphasize the politics. Of course I recognize that essentially it’s a political subject, but still.

By: Henry

Henry — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 23:09:48 +0000

The other standout for me was James Scott’s “Seeing Like A State.” Again, I don’t agree with everything that Scott says, but boy can he write – I felt like writing him a fan letter afterwards.

By: antirealist

antirealist — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 22:29:42 +0000

Guns, Germs and Steel… [is] one of the two or three most exciting books in the social sciences (as very broadly defined) that I’ve read in the last decade. Just curious: what would the others be?

By: antirealist

antirealist — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 22:25:16 +0000

Guns, Germs and Steel… [is] one of the two or three most exciting books in the social sciences (as very broadly defined) that I’ve read in the last decade. Just curious: what are the others?

By: Henry

Henry — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 20:51:00 +0000

and feedback effects will lock in the disadvantageous position of women in the labor market. Is there any evidence for this? It’s a plausible mechanism, but as Kieran has written of appeals to feedback models more generally href=”http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001259.html” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001259.html this sort of explanation has a bit of a “just so” quality about it that doesn’t necessarily reflect empirical reality very well at all. bq. What I’ve observed from CT is that the default point of view on EP here is as knee-jerk and two-dimensional as Bernstein is on, say, women’s studies. Those of you that are vocal on this subject implicitly pick the most extreme EP proponents and their most risible assertions and use them as representative. Any mention of EP, anything that smacks of sociobiology, is assumed to be such a strawman unless demonstrated otherwise. Not so – I do plead guilty to once using a fairly ridiculous example of sociobiological explanation in a post – but Dan and others are taking on the big names in the field. Nor do I buy the purported explanation for this bias – that ” CT’s contibuters strongly represent the fields that believe EP to be trespassing on their turf.” I do get annoyed when people take Cosmides and Toobey’s ridiculous portrayal of the “standard social scientific model” seriously. It’s neither standard, social-scientific, nor even a model – instead it’s a set of lazy, tendentious generalizations. That said, the only “turf” that sociobiologists seem to be contending for are the pages of the Sunday colour supplements and the NYRB/LRB – ground that I have no particular problem in ceding. I don’t think any of us would have any difficulties with the claim that (1) we are the products of evolution, and (2) that this will surely be reflected in important aspects of our social behaviour. But I don’t see why this obliges us to accept silly, and frankly a-scientific arguments with low or no evidentiary standards. So far, the contribution of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology to understanding the kinds of things that I am interested in, is remarkably low – extraordinarily low given the undeniable fact that we are evolved beings. I suspect that this isn’t entirely disconnected to the particular political biases of some of the biggest contributors to this strain of thought. That said, I’m certainly a big believer in the possibilities of an evolutionary approach to human behaviour – and in the kinds of contribution that, say, people like Jared Diamond have to make. He doesn’t get everything right in Guns, Germs and Steel but he shows an interest in empirical testing, and in explaining variation as well as sameness, that seems to avoid most of the evolutionary psychological accounts that I’ve seen. It’s one of the two or three most exciting books in the social sciences (as very broadly defined) that I’ve read in the last decade.

By: Kimmitt

Kimmitt — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 19:15:54 +0000

As I’ve pointed out previously, a theory that individuals rationally maximise utility is hard to square with the idea that they are machines for replicating genes. Not really, no. Economists are pretty agnostic as to the origin of utility functions, be they handed down from God, socially determined, or the result of evolutionary pressures. That’s one of the strengths of the theory, really.

By: Ted Barlow

Ted Barlow — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 19:04:26 +0000

For the record, my undergraduate thesis advisor was a big proponent of evolutionary psychology. If I had to pick sides, I’d say that I’m with him. But I’m not an academic, not current on the state of the debate, and don’t see why my opinion should matter except as a counterexample about what Timberites think.

By: h. e. baber

h. e. baber — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 18:30:06 +0000

Funny thing is that while feminists get slammed for allegedly asserting in the teeth of all evidence that there are no innate male-female differences, some of the most vocal academic feminists buy into an upmarket version of the Mars-Venus hypothesis, loudly announcing that women have all the Venusian characteristics that everyone has always thought they had, including a distinctively female “way of knowing.” As far as the revealed preference argument goes, to make the case that the choices of men and women reflect different preferences you have to assume that the costs and risks men and women incur in making those choices are the same, which is manifestly false. If women know that they’re unlikely to get jobs driving trucks or fixing cars, and that it will be embarassing to apply, they’re not going to invest in training for those jobs or apply. If women are making on the average 76¢ to men’s dollar and have less of a chance at getting promoted, which is the case, many will rationally choose to invest in their husband’s more promising careers in preference to their own—and feedback effects will lock in the disadvantageous position of women in the labor market.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 15:12:14 +0000

Lis Riba, you are correct. The link does in fact mention “a commitment to social action.” However, the mission statement itself does NOT. The four pillars are invoked by President Jehuda Reinharz in his 1995 inaugural address. The actual mission statement, to which Bernstein refers, is presented below the quotation.

By: David Bernstein

David Bernstein — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 15:06:18 +0000

Kieran, I believe you misinterpreted my post. I never said the book isn’t very good, and of course wouldn’t say so without actually reading it. I merely disagreed with a particular quotation attributed to one of the authors.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 14:52:20 +0000

I’ll say, first, that this post takes no position on Evolutionary Psychology. It’s also consistent with the book Bernstein dismisses not being very good.

By: antirealist

antirealist — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 14:27:33 +0000

I don’t really see what evolutionary psychology has to do with the Barnett/Rivers book, or Bernstein’s objections. Bernstein is claiming that it is an established social fact that, for example, men are more attracted to good-looking younger women, and the Brandeis authors dispute this. You don’t have to buy into EP to agree with Bernstein, and you don’t have to be an EP opponent to disagree with him.