Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site rti-sel.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!rti-sel!wfi From: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: Re: Intelligence & SocioBio Message-ID: <269@rti-sel.UUCP> Date: Thu, 27-Jun-85 11:07:25 EDT Article-I.D.: rti-sel.269 Posted: Thu Jun 27 11:07:25 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 30-Jun-85 01:28:13 EDT References:<443@unc.UUCP> <252@rti-sel.UUCP> <> <495@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <875@mtgzz.UUCP> Reply-To: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) Organization: Research Triangle Institute, NC Lines: 52 Summary: In article <875@mtgzz.UUCP> (d.l.skran) writes: >By all means, read "Not in Our Genes" that "devastating critique" >of sociobiology. I did. So did the reviewer for "New Scientist." >We weren't impressed. Period. The authors of this book have placed >their politics above science. Unfortunate, if true. I know Lewontin and his students have sometimes been guilty of this sort of thing. I intend reading it myself, however, to form MY OWN opinion of the book, and I encourage other readers of this group to do likewise. Don't assume the reviewer for the "New Scientist" was necessarily free of political and personal biases in his/her review. >No doubt many of the sociobiological claims concerning religion >are ill-conceived. However, I believe most serious scientists >believe that genes and behavior, nature & nurture interact in a complex >fashion to create us as we are, and that this has important >implications concerning mating & dating, even for humans. However, >just what those implications are seems *confused* at this point, >as should be expected in a young science. Or in a pseudoscience. Mind you, I'm not saying sociobiology IS a pseudoscience, just that it remains to be demonstrated that there's anything to many of the sociobiologists' claims. >On a practical every day level, women do chose men, and men >women, and they use various criteria to make these decisions. >Whether these criteria are somehow genetically controlled seems >unimportant to me. They may or may not be. However, they do >exist. Women tend to chose men(baring mental illness) that they >see some advantage in associating with. Which women? ALL women? All WASP women? All North American middle-class women? All women you personally know? And does this statement imply men DON'T choose women they "see some advantage in associating with," or that women do so at a higher statistical frequency than men? What's your evidence if you're talking about a higher statistical frequency of behavior in a certain population? Statements like this reveal more about personal attitudes toward women than they do about the 'nature of womankind.' >This is a much broader concept than "a good physique," and it >seems to me much better approached via game theory than >idle theorizing about sociobiology. Heh, heh ... I guess idle theorizing about game theory IS preferable to idle theorizing about sociobiology ... Let's get a REAL GOOD series of flames going about game theory, folks. Count me out, though; I'm going fishin.' -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly