<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Lively, Provocative, and Funny -- It Changed My Mind
Review: Before I read The Trouble with Nature, I thought there was some evidence for a gay gene. I also thought that gender differences were "hardwired" in our basic biology and had their origins in human evolution. This engaging, myth-busting book shows what's wrong with these (and other) widespread ideas.High Points: I enjoyed the lively analysis of how biology gets (mis)used and (mis)understood in popular culture (TV, newspapers) -- and I especially learned from the section on anthropology, which shows that "human nature" comes in many varieties.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Popular Critique of Biodeterminism
Review: When Sociobiology: The New Synthesis first came out in 1975, its claims were hotly contested by scholars in many fields. Today, there remains a not insignificant amount of opposition within these fields, but not as much as there used to be.
The reasons for this shift are not good scientific reasons, but ideological ones. Sociobiology, eugenics, social Darwinism, evolutionary psychology, and vulgar behavioral ecology and and behavioral genetics -- and they *are* really all part of the same tradition, despite their proponents' insistance to the contrary -- are no more supported by the evidence today than they were 30 years ago. And in fact, if the usual standards of scientific rigor were applied, I think, they would've long ago disappeared. Yet for ideological reasons, they're instead praised to high heavens in the media.
The Trouble with Nature is particularly interesting because it details not just the scientific problems with the claims of these fields, but also this fawning over them in the press and their acceptance as fact in pop culture. Lancaster provides a worthy addition to the tradition of critical works put out by Lewontin, Fausto-Sterling, Sahlins, and numerous others.
<< 1 >>
| 
