Sociobiology

To the Editors of The Crimson:

The letter by John Tooby (Dec. 12) run under the headline "Science for the People?" is typical of the arguments sociobiologists have used against the criticisms of human sociobiology raised by Science for the People(SftP) and many others. We welcome this opportunity for people to examine the merits of sociobiology and to witness the tactics sociobiologists resort to in an effort to defend their field from an increasing barrage of criticism.

Mr. Tooby, while conceding that the criticisms leveled by (SftP) have "gained wide currency" and that in "slandering" sociobiology we "have met with some success," tries in his letter to salvage the theory from beneath the distortions which we have allegedly fostered. He begins by noting that the damage which we have done to sociobiology has been "abetted by sensationalistic treatments of the field by the media..."Let us deal with this statement, for it is quite remarkable.

The press has indeed given sensationalistic (as well as sensational) publicity to sociobiology. However, the origins of this publicity have nothing to do with SftP, but rather lie in a massive media campaign which was orchestrated around the publication of E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis in 1975 and which has continued since. Beginning with a pre-publication front-page article in the New York Times and followed by numerous interviews with Wilson on television and in magazines such as House and Garden, People, OMNI and others, the implications of sociobiology for human social arrangements have been consistently emphasized. Invariably, this publicity has been favorable to sociobiology and even praised by the sociobiologists.

Mr. Tooby goes on from here to an even stranger point: "the use of sociobiology by the European New Right is the direct result of and responsibility of SftP and others who have misrepresented this diverse and complex field." Presumably, he is charging that SftP has drawn political conclusions from the field of sociobiology where none are implied. But, in fact, political conclusions of sociobiology are repeatedly articulated by the advocates of this field. In addition to the original texts, one need only read the various popular accounts and interviews with sociobiologists referred to above. For example, E.O. Wilson has stated that in any future society, women will never play as great a role as men in business, politics and Science (NY Times Magazine, Oct. 12, 1975). In response to criticisms of this point, he has subsequently suggested that societies may be able to counter the supposed biologically programmed sex-role differences, but at the cost of placing "some personal freedoms in jeopardy." (On Human Nature) On Human Nature and other texts are replete with the political and social consequences of sociobiological theory. To call the link between sociobiology and reactionary political ideas (such as sexism) a fabrication, as Mr. Tooby does, is to ignore the proliferation of books and articles by leading sociobiologists which attempt to delimit possible forms of social organization.

Mr. Tooby's characterization of our depiction of hundreds of sociobiologists as "racist, sexist Nazis" is simply untrue and indicates that he has never read our literature or heard us speak. This might account for many of his other mistaken impressions of our position as well. As Nature (Nov. 22, 1979) noted in a full-page article about our forum: "Members of the Group (SftP) emphasized that they were not branding all those who write about sociobiology as extremists--but were drawing attention to the potentially dangerous connections between ideas expressed by scientists and the social and political climate in which they were propagated."

Tooby has apparently failed to realize that sociobiological theory not only treats inter-group behavioral differences as genetic, but argues that racism, sexism and xenophobia are the genetic reactions to these differences. It is no accident, then, that a racist organization like the National Front in England would seize upon sociobiology to explain why whites should attack blacks.

The notion that if a trait is genetic it is ineradicable or unmodifiable is, in fact, quite unscientific. Yet, consider the words "predetermined by biological fact" found on the cover of On Human Nature, or the quote, "We are bound as inextricably to our heritage as we are to the shapes of our eyes," from The Genesis Factor. Much of human sociobiology rests upon the speculative assumption of genetic control for social behavior (for which there is not one shred of evidence) with the explicit conclusion that the knowledge of the human genotype will place, limits on the possible forms of social organization accessible to humans. In fact, there is simply no basis for this conclusion in genetic theory.

But the popular appeal of this reasoning, which the sociobiologists have nurtured, is that an explication of the biological determinants of human social behavior will guide us in molding society. Thus, arguing from this line of thinking, Wilson states that: "We already know...that the worlds of William Graham Sumner, the absolute social Darwinist, and Mikhail Bakumn, the anarchist, are biologically impossible." (On Human Nature) This is nothing more than scientific rubbish being used to justify and reinforce popular prejudice.

Lastly, but not least, in Mr. Tooby's defense of sociobiology, he resorts to the time-honored tradition of red-baiting. If the technical inaccuracies in the body of his letter fail to raise questions about the nature of the theory he defends, then surely his slurs about radical politics should cause one to consider the substance of his reply. He states that inasmuch as there is not truth in our accusations, one must examine our ideology, which, according to him, places "class interest--or more simply, greed--as an explanation for why people behave as they do."

Mr. Tooby is also quite glib about labeling our group as Marxist. Had he investigated, he would have found that many of us in the Sociobiology Study Group would be quite unhappy with this characterization. To dismiss all criticism of sociobiology based upon a misrepresentation of the political stance of one segment of the critics is a mark of dishonesty.

What has distinguished our criticism from that raised by many others is our concern that the field of sociobiology is not merely bad science. In addition to our extensive scientific critiques, we have also pointed out that the phenomenon and consequences of sociohiology must be understood within a political context. We have shown how the attempt to "biologicize" social problems is not a new development, but rather another example in a long history of science being used as an instrument to justify and maintain oppressive social relations. The events which we noted in our original letter the the Crimson, of the vigorous application of sociobiological ideas in Europe to justify proposals for reactionary social measures, are thus not an aberration, but the logical outgrowth of a bad theory which is heir to a bad tradition.

Edward Egelman

Graduate student in physics Brandeis University

Jonathan Beckwith '57

Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, Harvard Medical School

Joseph Alper '63

Professor of Chemistry, University of Massachusetts