Right Wing Nation

I bet you think this is going to be about creationism or something like that. You’re wrong.

William Briggs, statistician (and if you don’t think statisticians can be humorous, you really need to drop by his blog), commented on an article I had sent him in one of those “Seen this?” email messages. The article, on Gene Expressions (a great place to peruse if you’re interested in genetics or bioanthropology), quite effectively skewers a rather pathetic attempt to explain away the “chess gap” with sampling.

Feel free to read it if it interests you, but Mr. Briggs made an intriguing statement. That’s what I want to focus on. He said (italics are his, and emphasis is mine):

where there’s evidence of a big difference (like chess), your only argument against an innate difference is circumstance or discrimination.

Discrimination is an intentional action, and usually isn’t worthy of consideration (particularly speaking of the “chess gap”). It’s circumstance that catches my eye.

I believe I have said before that I was a bioanthropology major at the beginning of the sociobiology wars. Now, if you’re unfamiliar with sociobiology, let me explain (briefly and simply, so you don’t fall asleep in your chair). In 1975, biologist E. O. Wilson published a book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, in which he presented data from to support his thesis, that behavior often has a genetic component. That is sociobiology, so let me repeat it.

Behavior often has a genetic component.

It sounds fairly uncontroversial, doesn’t it? Oh, you’re so wrong.

My major interest in bioanthropology was population genetics, so you won’t be surprised to learn that when I found out Prof. M., one of the best teachers I ever had, was offering a seminar in sociobiology the following semester, I immediately registered for it.

It was educational, but as much in unintended ways as sociobiology.

Half of the students registered were cultural anthropologists. Trust me. This was rare, nearly unheard of, that the Margaret Mead anthropologists would deign to be seen anywhere near bioanthropologists or archaeologists. They had, after all, exiled us to the top floor of the building so they wouldn’t have to put up with us, but here they were, coming upstairs to the un-air conditioned top floor, for a bioanthropology seminar.

I soon found out why. But before I go there, let’s look at that simple, working definition one more time.

Behavior often has a genetic component.

Note well that it does not say “always has,” nor does it say that behavior is wholly, or mostly genetic in basis. Wilson’s thesis was merely that behavior often has a genetic component, and he backed up his thesis with a great deal of data.

There was a war beginning, and I saw the first battles in that seminar. These cultural anthropology students registered for this course solely so they could shoot down Wilson’s thesis. They had no interest in what he had to say, and I make this statement because every single time one of them opened his mouth, he argued against a thesis that was not Wilson’s, namely, that behavior is always and wholly genetically determined.

Every. Single. Time. All. Semester. Long. No. Matter. How. Many. Times. They. Were. Corrected.

To call them animated would be an understatement. They came to the room angry. The got angrier throughout the seminar. They exploded. The beat on the table with their fists. And their reaction was purely emotional, because not one of them ever offered a logical, coherent, data-driven argument against Wilson’s thesis. Not. Once.

That was partly because the only bioanthropology they had had was the required core course, so they were far less equipped to deal with the material than everyone else there. But that was only a small part, for what I saw was this.

The seminar was fractured into two very different groups. There were those who thought this an intriguing topic and wanted to explore it further (some were more convinced than others). And there was the other group, those who were literally infuriated by the topic and would have done anything to discredit it, and who had absolutely no interest in addressing the ideas or arguing against them. Several openly stated in the seminar in front of Prof. M. that they had not cracked Wilson’s book or any sociobiological paper assigned, and never would.

Sure, you can draw analogies, because I’m sure this reminds you of somebody, but the point I want to make is this: The seminar divided into the scientists and the religionists. The latter claimed that the topic was “racist” and “classist” and “colonialist” (that’s a particularly popular smear among the Margaret Mead set) and every other “ist,” yet never bothered to back up their assertions or argue against the topic.

As I said, it was an educational experience. Before the seminar began, I suppose I would have anticipated that the cultural folks would take the position that behavior was more nurture than nature, and I would have been wrong. The only acceptable position for them was that behavior was wholly nurture, that there was no genetic component possible. To them, it was all or nothing, and they had no interest in any kind of data, argumentation, or proof.

It was a religious tenet, one they held so fervently that they had to come upstairs, invade our seminar, and disrupt it.

Science v. religion. Aristotle v. Plato. You get the idea.

Let’s look at that Briggs quotation again:

where there’s evidence of a big difference (like chess), your only argument against an innate difference is circumstance

And we’re back to nature v. nurture, here, male-female chess differences as inherent (nature) or circumstance (nurture). Most sociobiologists would take the position (tentatively) that these differences were both, that is, both inherent and circumstantial variables affect one’s chess proficiency. The Margaret Mead group, however, will only accept a wholly nurture explanation.

It’s hard enough to do these research tests, and here, nearly impossible, since the old stand by, twin studies, isn’t available (identical twins are the same sex). But it is, at least theoretically, testable, and that leads us to the fundamental problem of the nurture argument — or more accurately, because there isn’t a nurture argument, the “all nurture always and nothing else” argument.

“Circumstance” isn’t a variable, and that’s the problem. “Circumstance” is “everything that isn’t genetic.” There is no way to disprove “circumstance” in a study, so it isn’t testable. Consider: “Circumstance” could include hundreds of thousands of different variables, from at what age the subject was introduced to chess to how the subject was taught chess to what the subject ate to whether the subject’s parents played chess and at what proficiency to whether the subject is a member of a “disadvantaged” group, well, you get the idea. But forget that, and for the moment, let’s pretend that “circumstance” is only, oh, say, 60 identifiable variables. The problem with the behavioral sciences is that these 60 variables aren’t necessarily independent variables, that is, although one may not affect the dependent variable (chess proficiency) by itself, it may interact with another variable or variables to do so, and it all becomes a big mess.

You can’t test “circumstance,” and because you can’t test it, “circumstance” — more to the point, nurture — is a religious tenet. We can disprove a genetic component (although genetics are pretty complex and we’re dealing with more than one variable there, too), and by disproving a genetic component, indirectly prove “circumstance,” but that’s it. We cannot test “circumstance.”

Whether they’re ed school researchers, Margaret Mead anthropologists, or Marxist sociologists, “nurture” is a point of faith that cannot be questioned, and it must be “wholly nurture.” Some will go through a set of motions to “prove” their theses, whether it’s ed school researchers using “free lunch status” as a proxy variable for a whole cluster of nebulous variables and drawing causative conclusions from (often weak) correlations, or sociologists cherry-picking data and making specious arguments, and some, like the Margarete Mead anthropologists, will not. But in every case, it’s religious faith. There’s not a whisper of science in it.

The other problem is the divide I observed in that seminar. None of the bioanthropologists was invested in the idea that behavior was wholly or mostly or always genetically determined. Indeed, sociobiology was new at the time, and although they all thought Wilson’s thesis sounded reasonable, they wanted to test it, you know, do research. The “all nurture all the time and no exceptions” cultural anthropologists had no interest in any kind of research or even considering Wilson’s thesis. They were only invested in tearing it down.

And that, my friends, is the real nature-nurture split, or rather, there is no nature-nurture split. It’s a science-religion split.

Now speaking of science v. religion, I have to be at church in about an hour.

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