The Democratic War on Science?

John Derbyshire asked at National Review, “Will Obama Kill Science?”

“Most people still think of human-science controversies in terms of nature/nurture. As a matter of real scientific dispute, that is all long gone. Nature/nurture arguments were at the heart of the sociobiology wars that roiled the human sciences through the last third of the 20th century. (The 2000 book Defenders of Truth, by the Finnish sociologist of science Ullica Segerstråle gives a full — and so far as I can judge, very fair — account.) The dust of battle has pretty much settled now, in science departments if not in the popular press, and nature is the clear victor. Name any universal characteristic of human nature, including cognitive and personality characteristics. Of all the observed variation in that characteristic, about half is caused by genetic differences. You may say that is only a half victory; but it is a complete shattering of the nurturist absolutism that ruled in the human sciences forty years ago, and that is still the approved dogma in polite society, including polite political society, today.”

“Population geneticist Henry Harpending posts a creepy invitation he got from the National Human Genome Research Institute (yes, that’s a ‘.gov’ you see there in their web address …), who are ‘planning a workshop to explore the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) raised by research on natural selection in humans.’ The impetus for this meeting, they say, is ‘a growing need for more thoughtful deliberation by genomic researchers, ELSI researchers, science writers and science editors regarding the societal issues raised by natural selection research.’ Get the picture?”

“We are about to find out whether our traditional devotion to free speech and free enquiry can survive real, incontrovertible results from the human sciences; and in particular, in the event of an Obama victory, whether that devotion can survive under a left-liberal administration headed by a cultural Marxist — an administration much more interested in shoring up the soft totalitarianism of ‘diversity’ and ‘multiculturalism’ than in permitting the discovery of true facts about human nature.”

http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/HumanSciences/obamavshbd.html

John, sorry about your message ending up in the spam filter for a while. C’est la vie.

A few quibbles. First I have a hard time seeing Obama as a “cultural Marxist” – or for that matter understanding what the even means. Clearly he’s a liberal. But a Marxist?

Secondly I’m not sure there’s anything sinister about a workshop exploring the issues related to natural selection in humans. I actually think that’s a good thing. Of course one could promote it in such a way as to make it bad. But that’s true on a lot of issues.

I think there’s general consensus that human evolution is, if anything, going on much faster now than in the past. That’s partially because of the size of the population but also due to rapidly changing selection pressures.

You know I actually don’t care if politicians make a value judgement that despite the science path X is what we should do. I may disagree with them but it doesn’t infuriate me. What infuriates me are politicians who lie about science so as to get people to believe path X is the right one.

Umm. The only socialists I saw in the last while were Sarah Palin and how they treat resources in Alaska and then George Bush nationalizing Freddie Mack, Fannie Mae and buying control of many banks whether they wanted it or not. Can you point to a single socialist policy of Obama?

Dan, while I don’t care for the Derbyshire essay I’m not quite sure I find your attack on “human nature” much better. Certainly one can talk about human nature without being an essentialist about human nature. Can’t one? It seems you are equating the two.

Yet even if species aren’t an essential structure (as I think biology has demonstrated) I don’t think that entails we can’t say there are facts about what ducks are like.

It seems to me you are simply raising a false dichotomy. There simply doesn’t need to be essentialism for there to be factual claims about some collection.

To the second issue I don’t think nature over nurture was exaggerated. The article said 50% which isn’t really exaggerating. Also I think one has to be very careful about epigenetics, the effects of which often are exaggerated quite a bit. Further where to draw the line between what is epigenetics and environment is blurry at best. We wouldn’t want to say, for instance, that a mother’s heroin use during pregnancy is an example of epigenetics. This is not a small matter in biology and there are many microbiologists who get quite upset at how the concept of epigenetics is used. At best it is often hyperexaggerated even if I think getting rid of the category entirely is unwarranted.

As to the human sciences, while I’m been a frequent critic of sociology and anthropology as being far too often muddled and a clearing house of bad science, the fact is there’s a lot of good science in them as well. To say that the disciplines as a whole have “bought into the soft totalitarianism of diversity and multiculturalism” seems hard to buy. Individuals may have. But I have a hard time making sense of exactly what you are even claiming by those statements let along thinking they have much scientific meaning.

One more thing. The failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac does not represent some sort of failure of the free market. They were quasi-governmental, privatize the gains, socialize the losses style institutions from the beginning.

The weakness of both was as GSEs they were created for a specific purpose – to further government housing policy, no matter how risky or unprofitable in the long run. That government sponsorship amounted to an implicit government guarantee of their obligations that gave them a short run advantage over their private competition – they could borrow at lower rates. Do you suppose the government charged them a premium for such an open ended insurance policy? No. Ultimately the story of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is nothing more than back loaded public expense for front loaded public policy. Socialism at its finest.

Clark,

That is the predominant narrow definition. I am using a broad definition, one like this (from) Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary:

Socialism, n. [Cf. F. socialisme.] A theory or system of social reform which contemplates a complete reconstruction of society, with a more just and equitable distribution of property and labor. In popular usage, the term is often employed to indicate any lawless, revolutionary social scheme. See Communism, Fourierism, Saint-Simonianism, forms of socialism.

[Socialism] was first applied in England to Owen’s theory of social reconstruction, and in France to those also of St. Simon and Fourier . . . The word, however, is used with a great variety of meaning, . . . even by economists and learned critics. The general tendency is to regard as socialistic any interference undertaken by society on behalf of the poor, . . . radical social reform which disturbs the present system of private property . . . The tendency of the present socialism is more and more to ally itself with the most advanced democracy. –Encyc. Brit.

We certainly want a true history of socialism, meaning by that a history of every systematic attempt to provide a new social existence for the mass of the workers. –F. Harrison.

A few other things:

1. Economic factors are traditionally divided in to land, labor, and capital. The “means of production” refers to a subset of “capital”, typically factories, not land. Nonetheless, if private investors wanted to buy rather than lease oil containing properties at fair market value, I don’t think there would be much to complain about.

2. As long as we are being picky about terminology, there is little that is economically liberal about contemporary left-”liberalism”. Everywhere else in the world, “economic liberalism” refers to economic libertarianism. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher are both considered economic liberals.

3. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were bankrupt government sponsored enterprises. The government always “takes over” bankrupt organizations – it is just a question of timing and extent. If you are a creditor who is not getting paid, you can file a petition for involuntary bankruptcy. Chapter 7 means the government takes over the economic interests (the “estate”) of an entity and liquidates them. Chapter 11 means that every significant business decision (down to the level of paying the electric bill) is subject to approval by a federal judge.

The real act of socialism here is the government sponsorship of these entities in the first place. There is nothing particularly socialist about putting such entities into receivership when they are on the verge of bankruptcy. Retaining direct control indefinitely would be, of course.

4. As far as Obama’a true fiscal and monetary instincts, we shall know soon enough. It is worth mentioning that the U.S. was recently rated as having the most progressive tax system in the industrialized world, significantly more progressive than most European countries. High income individuals are already taxed at such levels that further taxation is likely to be subject to the law of diminishing returns. Obama has stated that in a tradeoff between greater economic equality and higher government revenue, he prefers greater economic equality. Either way, the only way to raise sufficient revenue for a European style welfare state is to significantly raise taxes on everybody, not just the “wealthy”.

To add, I am worried that Obama will show what you call socialist and what I call mildly redistributivist tendencies. My hope is that he will be so occupied with the economic collapse, the budget deficit, several wars, Russia, Israel, Iran etc. that he won’t risk the political capital to do much. Plus I think he learned from Clinton and recognizes that this election was more about moderates than liberals.

I might be wrong in this.

I do think he’ll increase some spending. But some things, such as infrastructure, R&D, drug testing, food testing, etc., have long been underfunded.

Regarding Alaska – the state doesn’t have any choice in the matter. The vast majority of the land in Alaska is owned by the federal government. Same with Utah and most other western states.

I think it would be an excellent idea to transfer nearly all federal lands to the states, and for the state to sell a healthy portion of that to private owners. Maintaining ownership of land you could be collecting property taxes on is relatively pointless. Payment-in-lieu-of-taxation (<a href=”http://www.doi.gov/pilt/
PILT) is just another name for “taxation in lieu of taxation”.