Rating: 
Summary: Utterly brilliant, hugely entertaining.
Review: At the outset of her book, Segerstrale comes up with a marvelous (and hugely entertaining) overview of the sociobiology controversy as an opera. Everyone sings their part, the emotions and language is overwrought, alliances shift, and we (the audience) are eventually left drained from the experience. While her tongue is firmly in cheek, opera isn't a bad comparison. Because so much of the controversy over sociobiology today feels like a performance. One side setting up straw men to knock over in order to increase their own moral capital. The end result is the most human view of science I've ever encountered (human in the sense of "human frailty").Because in the end, we see that the whole "sociobiology debate" wasn't really a scientific debate at all. The moral and political arguements were what created and drove the controversy all along. And Segerstrale reminds us all too strongly of something that's easily forgotten ... that science is (and will always be) a human pursuit. Driven by the same human emotions that drive all other pursuits. As Segerstrale herself says in the book's final words, two features often thought alien to science -- emotion and belief -- turn out to be omnipresent. They may not drive science, but they do drive scientists. And this book is a truly remarkable look at the controversy, the characters and the way science really works. It deserves to be read as widely as possible.
Rating: 
Summary: Ridiculous
Review: Here we have one more contribution to the mythical version of the sociobiology wars, with Wilson, Dawkins, and company cast as the heroes, and Gould, Rose, and company as the villains. (Segerstrale is, of course, a personal friend of Wilson's.) I personally have no use for angels and devils, instead accepting the fact that *both* sides were (consciously or otherwise) informed by ideology and that people on either side of the debate can and do differ in good faith in their views.
Rating:
Summary: Ridiculous
Review: Here we have one more contribution to the mythical version of the sociobiology wars, with Wilson, Dawkins, and company cast as the heroes, and Gould, Rose, and company as the villains. (Segerstrale is, of course, a personal friend of Wilson's.) I personally have no use for angels and devils, instead accepting the fact that *both* sides were (consciously or otherwise) informed by ideology and that people on either side of the debate can and do differ in good faith in their views.
Rating:
Summary: relativistic intellectual poison
Review: James McCall's previous review shows exactly why this book is a piece of poison. He tells us in so many words that he was sympathetic to the notion that all men are created unequal, that he opposed what he called "Marxism", and that therefore he liked this book. Pity: the fact that it caresses your most tenderly cherished prejdices is no reason to declare the intellectual soundness of anything; and one would imagine that a man with some intellectual background, as Mr.McCall claims to be, would understand that.
This book is relativism pure and simple, the doctrine that one view of the world is no better than another, that there is no real right and wrong in any statement about fact - the title is ironical, since in the activity of "defending truth" Ulrica Segerstrale can see nothing more than a ridiculous dogmatism. As a result, she is only interested in what the parties said to each other and how they rebutted each other's arguments; not in which of the two sides' arguments carried more or less truth. I have not much time for Lewontin myself, but as far as I am concerned Stephen Jay Gould has shown time and time again that the pseudo-scientific arguments of Wilson and his sociobiological coterie are nothing more than nonsense driven by a lust to prove the natural inferiority of certain groups - not only morally detestable, but scientifically just plain wrong. Well, if you don't like such arguments, if you are eager to discover "scientific proof" that your particular social group is naturally superior to certain defined others (and this does not apply only to racist whites: black racists of the Bernal BLACK ATHENA kind are just as keen on this sort of argument), Ulrica Segerstrale will at least flatter your preconceptions enough to make you feel that yours is a valid point of view - and not an intellectual abortion born from swollen and hypersensitive self-esteem.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful instant replay but a more problematic scorecard
Review: My mentor Bill Drury once said that "real scientific controversies never get resolved, the participants simply get old and die, and the rest of us wonder what the fuss was all about". This may be the case in the "sociobiology wars" certainly the tone of many reviewers here is that Segerstrale has written an epitaph for the debate, but one can't help wondering -especially given the increasingly shrill claims of the "evolutionary psychologists" if what we have in DEFENDERS OF TRUTH isn't more of a cautionary tale of the effects of hubris. In any case Segerstrale has done us all an enormous service with this highly readable look behind the scenes at one of the most violent arguments in biology in the 20th Century. Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the book is the personal glimpses that we get of the primary players, but Segerstrale doesn't scrimp on the science within the battle or the contexts within which it is played out. I have found a great deal of useful lecture material for a number of courses here and I also find the book a valuable debunker of many of the legends that have grown up over the years. I also find Segerstrale's discussion of the essential unity of Wilson's work quite compelling -the outer shell changes, the fundamental core hasn't. My only quibble would be in terms of the conclusion "It ain't over till it's over..."
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful instant replay but a more problematic scorecard
Review: My mentor Bill Drury once said that "real scientific controversies never get resolved, the participants simply get old and die, and the rest of us wonder what the fuss was all about". This may be the case in the "sociobiology wars" certainly the tone of many reviewers here is that Segerstrale has written an epitaph for the debate, but one can't help wondering -especially given the increasingly shrill claims of the "evolutionary psychologists" if what we have in DEFENDERS OF TRUTH isn't more of a cautionary tale of the effects of hubris. In any case Segerstrale has done us all an enormous service with this highly readable look behind the scenes at one of the most violent arguments in biology in the 20th Century. Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the book is the personal glimpses that we get of the primary players, but Segerstrale doesn't scrimp on the science within the battle or the contexts within which it is played out. I have found a great deal of useful lecture material for a number of courses here and I also find the book a valuable debunker of many of the legends that have grown up over the years. I also find Segerstrale's discussion of the essential unity of Wilson's work quite compelling -the outer shell changes, the fundamental core hasn't. My only quibble would be in terms of the conclusion "It ain't over till it's over..."
Rating:
Summary: The definitive book on everything sociobiology!
Review: Oh so rarely do I get the oppertunity to read a book that, when over, I wish I could read again for the first time. This book was well worth the money (I paid hardcover price) and then some. It was thorough, interesting, informative and, dare I say, entertaining! As a lover and believer in science, I've never been quite so confident in sociobiology as I'm from the Popperian school that figures "If there's no concievable falsification method, then it can hardly be a science." Just because it explains, does not mean it explains correctly. After reading this book, I've still not made up my mind but to say that the battle over sociobiology is even stranger than I thought it was. Honestly, I don't think the author (who IS on sociobiology's side) intended this book as an argument for or against, as her history is quite objective, or so it seemed. Looking at the criticisms below, I find they are all valid. If you are not used to academic writing, this book may not be for you. In fact, this book came out of the authors PhD. thesis (?). It is quite a long, involved 400 page, closely spaced book but it is NOT long-winded. The mark of a long-winded book is if the reader can identify passages, chapters or sections that could be easily cut and there simply are none. Another criticism is that the author is bisased towards sociobiology (and possibly towards Richard Dawkins). As mentioned above, she is, but restrains herself well in the name of objectivity. I reccomend this book highly with two modifiers. First, I would suggest having read two books before starting this one- Wilson's "Sociobiology" and Dawkins "Selfish Gene" These two books are brought up repeatedly throughout, though not explained well. Second, if the reader is not used to heavily referenced, academic style books, this book will not be as rewarding as it may appear. Other than that, five stars!!
Rating:
Summary: A plain gray wrapper
Review: On the surface there's nothing attractive about this book. A simple title with no great promise of scientific quests or eccentric personalities. No catchy popular science theme and no photographs or diagrams; just 400 plus pages of closely spaced text. But within these plain gray jacket covers you've got the most comprehensive, balanced, and exceedingly well researched book on the cultural, philosophical, and political debates that surrounds the subject of sociobiology. The two obvious issues the book looks at are mentioned at the very outset. The Sociobiology Debate began when E.O Wilson applied some observations on animal behavior to the study of human society. This was largely confined to the final chapter in his book SOCIOBIOLOGY and this was decades ago; the book was published in 1975. From such innocuous beginnings we have an issue that has come forward through time, spread throughout most of the scientific community, and is recognized as the opening battle, and longest running dispute in the "Science Wars". This leads to the second issue that Segerstrale focuses on and the one which provides her with her title, and us as readers with some new and valuable insight into this debate. The scientists in question notably Richard Lewontin, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, John Maynard Smith, Steven Rose, Niles Eldredge, and of course Wilson himself, are all DEFENDERS OF THE TRUTH its just that they have "different conceptions of where the truth lies." Not only does this book give us details on the different methodologies of the scientists and what constitutes "good science", we also see some of the personalities involved. Political and moral ideologies emerge from the background and are shown to be strong influences. Straw men, red herrings, floating false balloons, threats of lawsuits, and a single jug of ice water, have all been used at one time or another to start or end debates. None of the principals emerges unscathed, although both Wilson and Dawkins come out with enhanced debating reputations. By tackling the sociobiology debate the book must naturally deal with the contentious issues in science: altruism, adaptionism vs allometry, essentialism vs existentialism, measuring human intelligence, punctuated equilibria, Marxism, determinism, reductionism, and attempts for a synthesis or unity of scientific knowledge. Although these are the topics covered the book is not an attempt to engage in epistemology. Instead Segerstrale is quite sensible in focusing on the methodology and motivation of the scientists themselves, rather than explaining the meanings of the scientific theories. The book then is very approachable and would go a long way to providing the general reading public with clarity on the "Science Wars". Many times in the past when reading books by the scientists mentioned here I've wanted some matrix that would allow me to peg them in terms of their political, moral, human, and philosophical world views. More than merely allowing us to do this Segerstrale rises above that. She highlights the subtle and shifting nature of scientific positions but is very clear in showing that for each scientist this is a case of defending the truth. I purchased this book on the recommendation of one of the reviewers here (thanks Stephen) and consider it one of the most useful science books i've read. I can't recommend it any more than by trying to pass on the favor with my own review. "In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from the binding." (Charles Lamb)
Rating:
Summary: Scientists vs. the Politically Correct
Review: Possibly the most important scientific debate of the twentieth century is the claim of the sociobiologists that men are animals who can at least partly be understood using the methods of science and, particularly, the application of the tools of genetics, evolution, and population biology. Segerstrale's scholarly, exhaustive work in documenting this debate between the scientists and the politically correct (some of whom were also scientists) is enlivened by her many interviews with the protagonists, some of whom still bear the scars of battle. Although she is at some pains to appear to be neutral on the debate, it is impossible for her to hide her true evaluation, that the sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists have carried the field, and the reactionary naysayers have been sent to slink away into a deserved obscurity. This is a cautionary tale of how scientific debates that involve human nature inevitably spill into debates about the nature of the scientific process, and quickly involve the ideological pomposities of deconstructionism, feminism, theology, Marxism, and other such fashionable quackeries. One thing Segerstrale omits that seems significant to me is that the antagonists to the sociobiologists, (for example, Gould, Lewontin, Lerner, Kamin, Gottlieb, and Rose) were mostly Jews with an identifiable Jewish/Marxist agenda. The champions of sociobiology are, mostly, not. The debate has a definite ethnic tint to it...
Rating: 
Summary: Why Do Marxists Hate Sociobiology?
Review: Segerstrale gives an excellent account of the debates over the Sociobiology controversy. Basically, they were over issues raised by an ad hoc Sociobiology Study Group at Harvard that was organized by Marxist professors Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin. No details are available on the actual origins of that group but by going on the attack they succeeded in setting the agenda for the debates to follow in succeeding years. They later associated themselves with Science for the People, a group still in existence. Writing a quarter century later, Segerstrale observes that "For a surprisingly long time, ... the favorite target of SftP seems to have been sociobiology and Wilson." But the key can be found in Segerstrale's description of a meeting between Lewontin and Chomsky that took place at a Sociobiology Study Group meeting in 1976. At this meeting, which she attended as an observer, it turned out that Chomsky and Lewontin held differing views on development of history, having read different works of Marx. Chomsky's Marx spoke of an unchanging "species nature" of humans while Lewontin's Marx saw a socially shaped and historically changing nature. Because of this ideological fine point Chomsky refused to write a review attacking Wilson simply because Wilson did not seem threatening to him. Lewontin's view of course is the heart of what is called their "materialist theory of history." "Darwinism is the theory of biological evolution, Marxism, of social evolution" is how it was taught to Soviet children. To a true Marxist natural selection stops and the materialist theory of history takes over as soon as there is a human society. "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence but, on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness" is how Marx himself puts it. This pedantic sentence is also a key to Mao's Cultural Revolution and to Pol Pot's re-education camps. Mao's aim was to change the nature of his subjects brought up in a capitalist environment by immersing them in a socialist means of production. To this end, he closed the universities and sent those professors to work on collective farms. Pol Pot saw this but did not think Mao had it quite right. For one thing, he did not think it would work if they had had too much capitalist education. Hence, he set an admission limit of eighth grade for his re-education camps and ordered those with more than eighth grade education shot right away. But all this ideology is directly contradicted by sociobiologists' claim that human nature has an inherited component and that this inherited component is a product of natural selection over millennia. It was clear to Lewontin, if not to the rank and file of the protesters, that this claim would severely undermine the materialist theory of history. And this is the source of the urgency that motivated them to organize the Sociobiology Study Group. Their efforts were international. In the UK their leader was Steven Rose whose task it was to neutralize Dawkins. Their charges against Wilson were basically red herrings that succeded in diverting attention from their main concern, namely that sociobiology cuts the ground right out from under their materialist theory of history. Marx had locked them into a Lamarckian view of human nature and they acted upon it. This kind of Lamarckism has been characterized by Steven Pinker as a belief that an infant's mind is a "blank slate" upon which experience writes a life story. The attack on Wilson that opened in 1975 and is still going on is described well by Segerstrale. Most of the charges they succeded in putting on the agenda were lies and distortions that are essentially red herrings to cover up their true concern which is defending the materialist theory of history against the onslaught of sociobiology. Even under attack, Wilson published a book "On Human Nature" in 1978 which clearly lays out his views on the subject. It won a Pulitzer prize and is still in print, in its tenth printing. It is a truly humane book and should be read by anyone as an antidote to the Marxist propaganda against Wilson.
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