Are liberals blank-slate evolution deniers?
It has recently become fashionable for right-wing and/or reactionary commentators to claim that liberals are denying science, specifically, evolutionary biology. This claim revolves around the assertion that some groups of human beings have overall genetic differences that arose as a result of evolution, and that these differences predispose members of some such groups to engage in certain behaviors more than other groups. One example of this argument can be found in an article written for (where else) Quillette:
“Evolutionary explanations for human behavior challenge their [i.e. purported left-wing “evolution deniers”] a priori commitment to “Blank Slate” psychology — the belief that male and female brains in humans start out identical and that all behavior, sex-linked or otherwise, is entirely the result of differences in socialization.”
OK, so the argument here is clear: SJW libtards think that all average differences between groups of humans must be entirely culturally and environmentally determined, naively assuming, because of their blind egalitarianism, that genetics and evolution must not contribute to such differences at all. But us educated, smart right-wing commentators, we actually understand evolution, we don’t deny it like those left-wing “evolution deniers”! Other examples abound (e.g. Michael Shermer referring to such “deniers” as “cognitive creationists”, echoing the argument by Colin Wright, author of the aforementioned Quillette piece, that SJWs only deny evolution for the human brain).
So why exactly are we to believe that liberals deny evolution (at least when it comes to the purported genetic basis of group differences in human behavior)? As I hinted above, we are told that the answer is because liberals are blindly committed to fairness, which in turn apparently makes them so convinced that everyone must have been “created equal”, and that group inequalities must only be due to environmental factors like discrimination, as to insist that everyone must have an equal genetic potential. As Jerry Coyne has claimed,
“…[the belief that psychological sex differences are entirely cultural in origin] comes form the mistaken notion that if you admit genetic and evolutionary differences between the sexes, it could buttress sexism. But that needn’t be the case, especially because morality and “rights” shouldn’t rest heavily on biology.”
Next, I will try to determine what evidence there is, exactly, that there is an evolved genetic basis for sex differences. Surely such evidence must be not only existent but overwhelming: after all, Colin Wright (author of the Quillette article I mentioned earlier) states that “the evidence for innate sex-linked personality differences in humans is overwhelmingly strong” (My emphasis). Surely if we read further in his piece we will find such overwhelming evidence that SJWs are naively denying, no?
Perhaps not: I looked a bit lower in the article and found such (uncited) claims as “In nearly every species tested to date for the presence of personality, we’ve found it, and sex-linked personality differences are frequently the most striking”, “humans are sexually dimorphic and exhibit many of the typical sex-linked behavioral traits that any objective observer would predict”, and “the more evidenced and straightforward explanation [than the environment-only perspective] is that we exhibit these classic sex-linked behavioral traits because we inherited them from our closest primate ancestors.”
This represents the argument that behavioral traits are passed down through the genes, and that this is the best explanation for why we have sex differences in the same traits as do other animals. This sort of argument is not new; Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin’s famous 1984 book Not in our Genes summed it up as follows:
“The biological determinist argument follows a by now familiar structure: It begins with the citation of “evidence,” the “facts” of differences between men and women … These “facts,” which are taken as unquestioned, are seen as depending on prior psychological tendencies which in turn are accounted for by underlying biological differences between males and females at the level of brain structure or hormones. Biological determinism then shows that male-female differences in behavior among humans are paralleled by those found in nonhuman societies — among primates or rodents or birds . . . giving them an apparent universality that cannot be gainsaid by merely wishing things were different or fairer. . . And finally, the determinist argument endeavors to weld all currently observed differences together on the basis of the now familiar and Panglossian sociobiological arguments: that sexual divisions have emerged adaptively by natural selection, as a result of the different biological roles in reproduction of the two sexes . . . the inequalities are not merely inevitable but functional too.”
Elsewhere, Lewontin (1980) highlighted the apples-and-oranges nature of many of these “look how similar what the animal’s doing to what humans do!” arguments: “Many of the descriptions of animal behavior are taken metaphorically from human behavior and laid on animals as natural. Human behavior is then seen as a special case of the more general phenomenon “discovered” in animals.” He then highlighted some reasons that these kinds of comparisons (e.g. caste systems in ants vs. humans) are more than a little tenuous.
But it’s not determinism!
Importantly, many of those pushing this type of explanation for sex differences seem to back away from outright determinism (or at least pretend to). Wright, for instance, acknowledges that “Sex no more determines one’s personality than it determines one’s height. Sex certainly influences these traits, but it does not determine them.” (Emphasis in original) Nevertheless, it would be easier to believe Wright’s insistence that he thinks that sex does not determine one’s personality traits if he weren’t also claiming, just a few paragraphs earlier, that “we exhibit these classic sex-linked behavioral traits because we inherited them from our closest primate ancestors.”
In reality, no one actually believes that genes have nothing to do with human behavior. However, those who understand that human behavior is not entirely due to what our genes are “programming” us to do, also recognize that this means the idea of behavioral traits being genetically inherited is absurd and scientifically indefensible. As Ehrlich & Feldman (2003) note, “Every aspect of a person’s phenome is a product of interaction between genome and environment.” They also cite reasons that human behavior is not, nor can it be, entirely determined by genes: “That genes can control some general patterns is unquestioned; they are obviously involved in the construction of our brains…But they cannot be controlling our individual behavioral choices.” Human behavior is way more complex than organisms that have almost as many genes as we do. Clearly, then, culture needs to be the main reason for this huge difference in complexity. To quote Ehrlich & Feldman again: “…to understand the development of and variation in specific human behaviors such as creating charities and cheesecakes, we must invoke culture, its evolution, and its potential interaction with biology.” In other words, one can acknowledge that “Blank Slate psychology” is invalid in that genetics plays a crucial role in the development of behavioral traits, while at the same time saying that this kind of speculation about an identifiable evolutionary basis for specific behaviors is an intellectual dead end, and that culture and the environment are also essential. This is not a secret truth that is being suppressed in academia for fear of its political consequences. The real trouble is when you cross the line into saying (or very strongly implying) that these differences are genetically determined.
The problem of the sociobiological fantasy that genes determine behaviors is only intensified by the sociobiological tendency to lump different behaviors together for no justifiable reason, just because that is the category of behaviors society refers to under a given name (e.g. Wright’s claim of a genetic evolved basis for sex differences in “aggression, female choosiness, territoriality, grooming behavior, and parental care”). Lewontin (1980) rightly criticized this fallacy when he noted that sociobiologists “… treat categories like slavery, entrepreneurship, dominance, aggression, tribalism, and territoriality as if they were natural objects of unquestioned status, rather than as historically and ideologically conditioned constructs.” He also noted, “It cannot be assumed that any behavior or institution to which a name can be given necessarily has an existence as a real thing subject to the laws of nature.”
Finally, the reliance of these explanations on “just-so stories” is a major limitation to their legitimacy. Obviously evolutionary stories about some environment people adapted to can’t be tested, even if it sounds plausible.
What does this mean? In short, there’s a difference between recognizing that specific behaviors are not controlled through our genes and the straw-man “Blank Slate” perspective purportedly held by the vast majority of SJWs.
