Trojan Horses in the Sociobiology Debate

Science Studies 1/2000 Politics by Scientific Means and Science by Political Means: Trojan Horses in the Sociobiology Debate Ullica Segerstråle The Sociobiology Debate: as if the metaphysical dispute of the last A Second Look three decades or so – in the latest mani- festation of its at least 2000 year old his- In an article in 1981 at the height of the tory – was finally nearing its resolution. sociobiology controversy, biologist and Still, the sociobiology debate was never essayist Lewis Thomas marveled at the about real physical genes. Sociobiology fact that two intelligent scientists like had to do with hypothetical genes “for” Harvard’s Edward O. Wilson and Richard behavior appearing in certain new theo- Lewontin would wish to engage them- retical models, and it was these genes selves in something as unyielding as a that were under dispute. dispute about human nature. For Tho- What attracted the participants in the mas, that was the same as “debating the sociobiology debate to this particular unknowable” (Thomas, 1981). Still, the academic feud? No doubt metaphysical sociobiology controversy seems to have questions gave the controversy some of held deep fascination for a great num- its appeal. Still, we have to remember ber of people for a quarter of a century – that the protagonists were scientists. And perhaps just because it was dealing with whatever other concerns and commit- such metaphysically appealing issues as ments scientists may be entertaining, human nature, morality, and free will. they are typically interested in science. I Today the debate continues in a new will here develop the argument that the guise in the conflict surrounding “evo- controversy actually served the partici- lutionary psychology,” a take-off from pants on both sides well in their ambi- sociobiology. But on June 26, 2000, with tion to promote what they took to be the announcement that the sequencing “good science.” But just how did this of the human genome was soon to be happen? I identify two different sce- completed, it may have seemed to many narios. One represents the standard in- Science Studies, Vol. 13(2000) No. 1, 3–18 Science Studies 1/2000 terpretation of the sociobiology debate, by people like William Hamilton, Rob- which says that what was happening was ert Trivers, and John Maynard Smith. just “politics by other means.” Already New theories now shifted the focus from here, however, it is clear that the socio- the individual organism to groups of biology controversy was not a “purely” relatives who shared genes. With the political debate, but also involved deep- help of cost-benefit calculations with an seated scientific beliefs and ambitions. eye to the genetic relatedness between The other is the more interesting possi- a donor and a recipient of an altruistic bility that the sociobiology debate was act, it was now possible to show that actually an example of a different strat- from a gene’s point of view it made sense egy, which might be called “science by for a bird, say, to sacrifice itself by let- political means.” ting out an alarm call, if it in this way In this article, I will be limiting myself could save a whole bunch of relatives. to a discussion of Edward O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins wrote the book The his two chief intellectual opponents Ri- Selfish Gene to further explain the rea- chard Lewontin and Stephen J. Gould. soning behind the new models in evo- Obviously, the sociobiology debate has lutionary biology. later become a major transatlantic con- What happened in 1975 was, that troversy with Gould and Richard Dawkins what Wilson wanted to present as excit- as the chief combatants. I will be largely ing new findings, his critics declared to drawing on material presented in more be “bad” and dangerous, ideologically detail in my book Defenders of the Truth: influenced science. The critics were re- The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology lentless in their attack. Among the most Debate and Beyond (Segerstråle, 2000). vocal ones were a number of Wilson’s Harvard colleagues, including Lewontin Sociobiology and Its Enemies and Gould. A letter in the New York Re- view of Books signed by them and a Wilson defined sociobiology as “the sys- group of Boston area academics claimed tematic study of the biological basis of that Sociobiology supported a conserva- all social behavior.” The idea was, that tive political agenda and linked the book just like other features, behavior, too, is to racism and Nazism. According to the undergoing evolution. But what upset a critics, if you said that something was in large number of academics and others our genes, that meant that it could not at the time was that Wilson in the last be changed, and this kind of biological chapter of his book included also hu- determinism would in turn undermine mans, and hypothetical genes for all the very idea of social reform. The most kinds of human behaviors. dramatic event was the 1978 meeting of The book Sociobiology was mostly the American Association for the Ad- about animals, of course. And Wilson did vancement of Science in Washington, have a lot of interesting news to share where a group of activists poured a about animal social behavior. There had pitcher of ice-water in Wilson’s neck, recently been a scientific breakthrough shouting: “Racist Wilson, you can’t hide, in evolutionary biology: the mystery of we charge you with genocide!” or (the animal altruism had finally been cracked now empirically demonstrated): “Wil- 4 Ullica Segerstråle son, you are all wet!” While sociobiologists found it unproble- Many bought into the critics’ view of matic to develop scientific models using sociobiology and Wilson’s political mo- hypothetical genes “for” social behavior, tives. Very few ever read his book (it was and behavioral geneticists felt free to a quite huge tome). And even fewer posit genes “for” various personality asked about Wilson’s real agenda – or, for traits or intelligence, this was an abso- that matter, about the critics’ agenda. lute anathema for the critics. Many of the And it is true that the critics’ claims were opponents of sociobiology had been plausible. In 1975 it was clearly too early trained in the experimental laboratory to even talk about the possibility of a bio- tradition, and for them, for a gene to be logical basis for human behavior. The even talked about, it would have to be “environmentalist” or culturalist para- identifiable in the lab! digm reigned high, with people like Mar- Declaring the modeling attempts of garet Mead in anthropology and B. F. sociobiology and behavioral genetics Skinner in psychology. And just before, “bad science” automatically put the crit- there had been the controversy about IQ ics of sociobiology in an one-upmanship around psychologist Arthur Jensen’s position, because the sociobiologists (1969) suggestion that the 15 point White and behavioral geneticists clearly had no and Black difference in measured IQ physical genes to show. Still, the model- could have a genetic explanation. Wilson ers felt justified in hoping that in the fu- was actually extremely careful in his ture there would, indeed, turn out to ex- book when it came to statements about ist real genes corresponding to the traits both IQ and race.1 But he had commit- postulated in their formulas. They saw ted a bigger crime. He had speculated themselves as working with provisional that human characteristics, including genetic models, expecting the details to some of our most cherished ones, could be worked out later as experimental sci- actually have a genetic basis: all the way ence proceeded. In the meantime, they from sex role divisions and aggressive- would be developing testable hypoth- ness to moral concerns and even reli- eses and proceed as if behavioral genes gious beliefs. actually existed. They considered this very standard as a scientific strategy and Defenders of the Truth as representing normal “good science” in their fields. In Defenders of the Truth I argue that one But this was only part of the conflict. of the important dividing lines between The contrasting positions on science the two camps in this long-standing con- were at the same time connected to troversy did, in fact, have to do with fun- larger agendas of the contending parties damentally different convictions about – and each side used the sociobiology the nature of science – and this encom- controversy as a convenient vehicle to passed also moral/political aspects. It further these. was basically a conflict between differ- What was the nature of these conflict- ent conceptions about the way science ing agendas? If we focus on the chief ought to be done and different assess- opponents Wilson and Lewontin – two ments of the social utility of research. colleagues with offices dramatically lo- 5 Science Studies 1/2000 cated one above the other – we can iden- used as heuristic tools. In other words, tify a “positive” and a “negative” agenda. Lewontin’s program was mostly a nega- Wilson’s positive agenda was very ambi- tive one; he criticized sociobiology (em- tious. Epistemologically, it involved unit- phasizing with Mies van der Rohe that ing the social and natural sciences. For “God is in the details”), but did not seem Wilson, the social sciences were destined to have a positive alternative to offer. to become more scientific through the Later on, though, Lewontin developed incorporation of population biology and what could indeed be seen as a kind of statistics. He also saw sociobiology as positive program, emphasizing such swallowing up ethology by the year 2000. things as the complex mutual determi- Philosophy, in turn, would take its lead nation of organism and environment.3 from sociobiological truths about hu- But that must be seen as a philosophi- man nature, thus “grounding” the ethi- cal rather than practically oriented con- cal realm in values derived from biology.

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