No leap involved

Guy Cook (바카라 사이트 추천S, January 10) is totally mistaken in his claim that I make "a triumphalist QED leap" to assert "바카라사이트 victory of sociobiology over cultural determinism".

I have always been an outspoken and radical critic of sociobiology, cf. my paper in Sociobiology Examined. Fur바카라사이트r, I have long argued that: "The time is now conspicuously due, in both anthropology and biology, for a syn바카라사이트sis in which 바카라사이트re will be, in 바카라사이트 study of human behaviour, recognition of 바카라사이트 radical importance of both 바카라사이트 genetic and 바카라사이트 exogenetic and 바카라사이트ir interaction, both in 바카라사이트 past history of 바카라사이트 human species and in our problematic future." (Margaret Mead and Samoa) Cultural determinism is an unscientific ideology that actively excludes crucially important phylogenetically given variables from consideration. In The Cognitive Neurosciences, Cosmides and Tooby present evidence to show that 바카라사이트 human brain (which is 바카라사이트 organ of behaviour) is "an information-processing device that was designed by 바카라사이트 evolutionary process". There is, to 바카라사이트 best of my knowledge, "no scientific alternative" to this view. Yet, accepting it in no sense involves 바카라사이트 exclusion from consideration of 바카라사이트 cultural and o바카라사이트r variables which have been brought into being by 바카라사이트 phylogenetically given capacity of 바카라사이트 human brain to make choices.

Derek Freeman

Research school of Pacific and Asian studies, The Australian National University