Shallow

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I was dismayed to see in the January 10 Crimson the uncritical review by Simon J. Frankel of Melvin Koaner's book, The Tangled Wing. Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit. While Konner eloquently makes a number of important points, much of his analysis is seriously flawed by a failure to examine carefully studies he cites as supporting evidence. For instance, in the case of sex role differences, he frequently overstates the evidence supporting the biological hypothesis, and chooses to ignore data supporting the environmental hypothesis.

As an example, he refers to the "stunning confirmation" of some of his theories in the work of Imperato-McGinley. In this work, it was found that genetically male individuals from the Dominican Republic who were born with a hormone deficiency and were, therefore, raised as girls, at puberty assumed male roles. However, he fails to point out that a group of individuals with exactly the same syndrome raised in the United States, also as girls, at puberty retained their female gender identity! If anything, this is "stunning confirmation" of the powerful effect of the social and cultural environment in influencing human behavior. Numerous other problems with the Dominican study have been pointed out (R. R. Rubin, J. M. Reinisch and R. F. Haskett, Science 211, 1318, 1981). This is only one example of the selective nature of Konner's evidence.

But, perhaps more importantly, Konner falls into the "fallacy of biological determinism," so aptly termed by Professor Richard Lewontin several years ago (The Sciences March/April, 1976). That is, even if there were substantial evidence that male-female roles or any human social behavior was influenced by our biology, this would not tell us anything about how much behavior could be changed. As Ashley Montage points out in his book Learning Non-Aggression, which describes a number of societies where aggression is minimal. "Human beings can learn virtually anything. Among other things they can learn to be virtually unaggressive." And even Konner himself indicates the importance of learning and culture when he points out that "girls in one culture may be more aggressive than the boys in another."

Thus, it is not inevitable that governments dominated by men will wage war, nor that those dominated by women will be peaceful. (Consider the case of Margaret Thatcher). Women should be adequately represented in all positions in society, including government, not because it will insure peace, but rather because all segments of society should participate in the decisions which affect their lives. Jonathan Beckwith   American Cancer Society Research Professor