Defenders of the truth
"In the summer of 1975 the distinguished Harvard entomologist Edward O. Wilson published his Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. In the book, Wilson defined sociobiology as a new discipline devoted to 'the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior.' He explicitly included our own species Homo sapiens, and devoted his final chapter to humans, suggesting that human sex role divisions, aggressiveness, moral concerns, religious beliefs, and much more, have a genetic basis. The book came under intense fire from a group of critics and battle lines were drawn." "Defenders of the Truth is the definitive account of the controversy, a tale involving clashes of convictions about science and its social role. But Segerstrale's canvas is on an altogether grander scale. Here is an insight into the world of science and the scientists who inhabit it. Here, too, are important scientific, moral, and political issues, and perennial themes such as the objectivity of science, the social use of scientific knowledge, human nature, and free will."--Jacket.
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2mentions
2people
2021–2022years
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- If anyone is interested in a book length treatment covering the controversy surrounding Wilson's Sociobiology, I can highly recommend a book that came out in 2000: "Defenders of the Truth: The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond", by Ullica Segerstrale. It's out-of-print, and never was very popular, but it's one of my favorite things to have ever read. Here's an overview:
When Edward O. Wilson published Sociobiology, it generated a firestorm of criticism, mostly focused on the book's final chapter, in which Wilson applied lessons learned from animal behavior to human society. In Defenders of the Truth, Ullica Segerstrale takes a hard look at the sociobiology controversy, sorting through a hornet's nest of claims and counterclaims, moral concerns, metaphysical beliefs, political convictions, strawmen, red herrings, and much juicy gossip. The result is a fascinating look at the world of modern science.
Segerstrale has interviewed all the major participants, including such eminent scientists as Stephen Jay Gould, Richard C. Lewontin, Richard Dawkins, John Maynard Smith, Nobel Laureates Peter Medawar and Salvador Luria, and of course Edward Wilson. She reveals that most of the criticism of Wilson was unfair, but argues that it was not politically motivated. Instead, she sees the conflict over sociobiology as a drawn-out battle about the nature of "good science" and the social responsibility of the scientist. Behind the often nasty attacks were the very different approaches to science taken by naturalists (such as Wilson) and experimentalists (such as Lewontin), between the "planters" and the "weeders." The protagonists were all defenders of the truth, Segerstrale concludes, it was just that everyone's truth was different.
It's available in some university libraries, used from Amazon for about $60, or as a PDF from here: https://b-ok.cc/book/2325442/6946b3.
- The sociobiology debate was a relatively high-profile and personal debate primarily between Wilson and Lewontin and their supporters. A good brief overview is given by John Nerst in his review of Segerstråle's "Defenders of the Truth: The Sociobiology Debate": https://everythingstudies.com/2021/06/23/rereading-defenders... Lewontin doesn't come out covered in glory.
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