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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