I just spoke at an event organized by the UQ Greens to discuss emissions trading. There was lively debate over the relative merits, and prospects for success of emissions trading, carbon taxes, and direct regulation (my views here).
Things were made even livelier by the attendance of some LaRouche supporters who explained, as usual, that emissions trading was a genocidal plot by the British Royal Family. On an issue like climate change, LaRouchites represent the extreme fringe of rightwing opinion, taking the usual conspiracy theories about grantgrubbing scientists and environmentalist plans for world government into utterly paranoid territory.
But the traffic isn’t all one-way. On the issue of DDT, a lot of people buy a watered-down version of the LaRouche theory presented in LaRouche’s 21st Century Science by Gordon Edwards back in the early 1990s, according to which the US ban on agricultural use of DDT in 1972 produced a global ban on the use of DDT to fight malaria, costing millions of lives as part of a genocidal eco-imperialist plot.
Tobacco lobbyist Steven Milloy, looking for a stick with which to beat the environmental movement, used his junkscience site (then affiliated with the Cato Institute) to push Edwards’ LaRouchite fantasies, including the claims of genocide, but (doubtless in deference to conservative sensibilities) without the usual LaRouche link to the Royal Family (Milloy’s genocide clock is here). Roger Bate of AEI later took up the same line with great success, though he has backed away from it more recently.
But who would be stupid enough to fall for the second-hand propaganda of a nut group, recycled by the tobacco industry ?
(Answer over the fold)
1. An incomplete list of prominent rightwing commentators and institutions buying the LaRouche line on DDT (I’ll update this and add links as I get time)
Australia: Andrew Bolt, Centre for Independent Studies, Miranda Devine Institute of Public Affairs, Jennifer Marohasy, Christopher Pearson, Ian Plimer, Quadrant
US:
AEI[1], CEI, Cato, Fox News, the Republican Party, the Wall Street Journal etc etc
UK:
Monckton, the Spectator, Spiked/RCP[2]
2. A complete (AFAIK) list of rightwing commentators and institutions who explicitly reject the LaRouche line on DDT and criticise its advocates
(This line intentionally left blank)
I’d welcome any additions to Group 2. Also, rightwingers should feel free to write in explaining why LaRouche is right on DDT, or why your version of the DDT ban myth isn’t really the LaRouche/Milloy/Bate version (which will qualify you for an asterisk). But special rules apply for this post. Real names and country of origin required so your name can be added to the list. Anonymous/pseudonymous comments in support of the DDT ban myth or apologising for its advocates will be deleted.
[1] It’s interesting to compare the 2004 piece linked above, blaming the 1972 US ban on agricultural use for millions of deaths, with this from 2007 which, while still pro-DDT, is more or less factually accurate, noting “Although many believe that DDT was banned after 1972, it actually was not”. Unlike Milloy, Bate has responded to criticism by backing away from some of the more extreme claims.
[2] What is it with the right and crazy ex-Comms/Trots? The Revolutionary Communist Party (now Spiked) showed a parallel evolution to LaRouche from far left to far right, but treated with much more respect for reasons I can’t fathom.
John Quiggin 
In Robert Heinlein’s novel, The Number of the Beast, after a lot of rather tedious chapters about ‘lifeboat rules’ and alternate universes he introduces the idea of The Ficton. The elementary particle of fiction. Every act of fiction produces a splitting into multiple universes in which all possible fictional characters and events exist.
Which leads to his final chapter. A huge convention (this is SciFi after all) at which every character from every SciFi story he liked, including his own, rocks up for a really cool poolside party. He even has a neat ‘venue’ for that most odious of creatures – The Critic. A giant Klein Bottle, a 2d structure in 3D space. A bit like the Hotel California. You can enter any time you like, you can never leave.
John. You have just given us the initial guest list for the ‘Sci Fi Critics Marquee’ special guest list. Any other nominees? Just think, they could hang out with each other till hell freezes over, secure in the knowledge that they are only talking to those in the know.
John Quiggin – Graham Young over the road has suspended me for alluding to Fred Singer’s association with the tobacco industry (and the Moonies) and has invited me to return, providing I submit my “real contact details.” Since I advised him that I’d feel much more secure giving those details to Jack the Ripper, I prefer to remain anonymous for the time-being.
However whether you delete this post or not, the information may be of assistance to you (if not already)……. but hark……..is that wailing and gnashing of teeth I hear, from the grim reapers – the chlorine industry and the industry shills?
Organochlorines (including DDT) are one of the greatest scientific blunders of man’s desire to tamper with stuff of which he knows little and the chlorine industry is losing its grip on the greasy totem pole but nuff said. I shall leave you to peruse the links provided:
Here’s the good bits:
http://www.who.int/entity/mediacentre/news/releases/2009/malaria_ddt_20090506/en/
And the bad bits:
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:YepHrqwiW4sJ:findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYP/is_17_112/ai_n15690589/+DDT+organochlorine+composition&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1566611
Cheers for now
John, if I’m correct the ARL & Citizens Electoral Council of Australia are associated with LaRouche and are in bed with the conservative side of politics in Australia ie Trevor John Perrett (National Party), Kenneth James Aldred (Liberal Party, etc and which may account for the the WA Liberal’s views on climate change and many other issue. You got to feel sorry for Turnbull putting up with such trash.
John,
From Argentina add another nutty right-wing noise machine called FAEC (Argentinean Foundation for a Scientific Ecology). It’s an offshot of the Heidelberg Appeal.
Check their position on DDT and chemicals, you will be surprised 🙂
http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Pesti.html
We really need a new label for the bunch of Australians you’ve listed. ‘Rightwing commentators’ lacks precision.
Ken Lovell, what do you suggest?
I think we need a term for epistemologically challenged people. Would it be possible to come up with an unequivocal definition?
Pr Q says:
There is no “organic” Right in AUS. And not much of it in the US, apart from the Old South, now throughly discredited by association with segregation.
Thus the Right-wing in liberal settler countries tends to be grafted on or drafted from some other political formation. That gives it an artificial flavour.
The AUS Right-wing is frequently staffed by refugees from the Far-Left like Pearson, Ackerman and Windschuttle. They seek to recapture the thrill of the contentious politics of their youth and simply latch onto the opposite side of political extremism, simply changing ideological signs. In short todays “flipped” Far-Righters are in an ideologically arrested state of development as permanent adolescents.
Unfortunately they have inherited the same ideological dogmatism, paranoia and Manichean sensibility that they formed in the political operations of their youth. This gives them their apostate fury and polemical skill. And their susceptibility for lunatic social theories on DDT and AGW.
One should also not underestimate the temptation to hop onto the bandwagon, which was student Trots in their youth and Murdoch in their middle-age.
Michael if I was any good at thinking up catchy labels I’d be making a fortune in marketing. But there’s only a few dozen of these Australian names that keep cropping up all over the world promoting the same nonsense and a unique identifier for the collective bunch of them might put them into context. Citing their institutional affiliations – even the dodgy ‘institutes’ and ‘foundations’ – gives the impression they represent a much wider and more authoritative base of scientific opinion than is actually the case.
I’ve offered “delusionists” in the context of AGW, but it works more generally. I should do a post on this when I get time.
Pr Q says:
The new-found respect accorded to Ackerman & Hitchens et al is simply a function of the elevated social-status of todays ex-Trots now working for Murdoch. They have moved up-market from their dingy offices in Farrago & Honi Soit. Now occupying more salubrious suites in Surrey Hills. With elevated status comes intellectual respect.
There is no “unfathomable” mystery about the respectful hearings granted to Right-liberal delusionists. There is a price for such status elevations, since who pays the piper calls the tune.
Until recently Murdoch favoured delusionism on AGW and Iraq or at least support for Bush’s delusionism on such subjects. Think his “$20 per barrel oil”.
Whereas in the seventies there were none such interests supporting delusionism about Red Army missile installations, Pol Pot, boiler-suited bra-burners and so on.
I dont accuse the Murdoch Right of naked political harlotry. More likely they are just playing to their proprietors and audiences prejudices, who are themselves invested in delusional positions, one way or another.
Of course this is just another instance of the Marxist theory of historical materialism: ideological superstructures must conform to sociological bases. (With a dash of Gramsci’s “false consciousness” thrown in for good measure.)
I think that Pr Q is playing ideological favourites here again. Anti-scientific delusionism is not the special folly of Right-liberals.
It should go without saying that there is plenty of Left-liberal anti-scientific delusionism going about on the general subject of anthropology. The widely held Left-liberal belief that the distribution of cultural traits is sociologically constructed, rather than biologically conserved, is the most egregious example of this intellectual deformity.
This has had disastrous humanitarian consequences. Particularly in AUS where Left-liberal ideological fantasies and institutional rackets greatly contributed to the consolidation of misery in remote indigenous communities. Examples of the disasters this kind of fallacy creates can be multiplied endlessly in education, health, law & order, immigration.
But I understand that the advance of genomic science has made Left-liberals into an ideologically endangered species. So we are not really permitted to take pot-shots at them.
Ken Lovell, most would agree that the delusionalists are selling their soul for 30 pieces of silver without offering any significant scientific input.
Jack, I would have thought you would be a bit more cautious about the advance of genomic science by now. I’ve lost count of the number of hypothetical genes for particular human behaviours (e.g “helper” genes for homosexuality) and claimed discoveries of actual genes for such behavior (eg the “God gene” a while back) that have been loudly announced then quietly forgotten.
And now that the political right have had a free go at some of the problems you’ve mentioned, such as those of indigenous communities, they are discovering that the reason the left-liberals didn’t do so well is that these are in fact highly intractable problems that don’t admit an easy solution.
It’s true that, at various times, some on the left (fans of New Soviet Man, extreme social constructionists) have made silly claims implying that cultural behavior is infinitely malleable. But such claims are pretty marginal these days.
The state of the science on what can be crudely called the nature-nurture question is that both play a role, but, for most outcomes of political/social/cultural interest, we still don’t know very much about which is more important or how they interact. That is, I think, the standard left-liberal view these days and it looks a lot more robust than the opposing position which has been such a failure as to need regular renaming (hereditarianism, sociobiology, Evolutionary Psychology, lower case evolutionary psychology and so on …).
I don’t know if he’s rightwing per se, but Professor Jeff Bennett of the Environmental Economics Research Hub at ANU seems to have bought into the DDT myth as well. He used it as an “example” of environmental policy having perverse results at a Cost Benefit Analysis course I attended just under a year ago. When I pointed out to him that it was a myth, he responded that he got the information from a “reputable source” I didn’t query what the source was, although I suspect it was an opinion column in the national broadsheet.
In Prof Bennett’s case, though, I think it may be more a case of naivety regarding his sources than ideological commitment.
I wouldn’t want to speak for him, he comments here from time to time, but Harry Clarke is an economist who self-identifies with the Right, who rejects climate change denialism, and who may well reject DDT lunacy.
Oddly enough John, the people I spoke to in the late 1970s who had known Lynn Marcus in the early 1960s through the RT spoke of him as being nobody’s fool. He was apparently able to argue any side of any case with plausibility and able in real time to cite references that seemed to support whatever claim he would make.
At party events in the early 1960s, this was apparently his trick. Someone would give him an absurd claim and ask him to cite Marx, Engels, Bebel, Plekhanov, Kautsky, Lenin or Trotsky in support … and he would oblige, often citing from four of them.
These stories reminded me that being mad, stupid and ignorant need not be co-extensive. Intellignece comes in a variety of forms.
You can add Graham Young’s Online Opinion to the list.
Frank Furedi (of RCP/Spiked) is similarly clever, though I don’t find anything he says particularly original or insightful. But he has certainly done well enough for himself as a pundit.
@jquiggin
True enough .. in the UK in 1979-80, his acolytes were easily recognisable as the sexiest and least scruffy people at the demos we attended. While your average Cliffite was pretty scruffy chap who looked as though he was playing to the someone who just stepped off the Longford assembly line or else looked like hippies your RCP types were immaculate, in a kind of punk chic kind of way.
They were also, apart from us Sparts, the keenest and best equipped to talk theory in very earnest tones, which, at the time, made them more interesting as well as easy on the eyes. If you were going to sleep with the enemy, they were the ones you’d most easily justify doing it with …
@jquiggin
My personal term for holders of the mindset in question is “Adullamite”.
From Cornford’s Microcosmographia Academica:
“The Adullamites are dangerous, because they know what they want; and that is, all the money there is going. They inhabit a series of caves near Downing Street. The say to one another, ‘If you will scratch my back, I will scratch yours; and if you won’t, I will scratch your face.’ It will be seen that these cave-dwellers are not refined, like classical men. That is why they succeed in getting all the money there is going.”
Substitute Capitol Hill, Wall Street, or Parliament House for Downing Street as required.
Do you think it is appropriate to link people to LaRouche on the grounds that they have some over-lapping beliefs. For example, if a person agrees with the LaRouchites about having a national bank, does that necessarily mean they also should be associated with the LaRouchites?
@John Humphreys
Not at all, unless their rationale is the same, or they pitch it at the same crowd or they share other LaRouche positions on the same grounds they do.
One may be right for the wrong reasons — some Americans, for example, object to action to mitigate anthropogenic climate change but favour cutting down on oil use so as to reduce imports of “foreign” and especially “Arab” oil so as to strengthen America’s ability to act as it pleases in trade and diplomatic matters. Even Obama has given a half-nod to this position.
@jquiggin
how is evolutionary psychology linked to the right?
John Humphries, fringe groups that claim Global Warming is one big conspiracy are just a sandwich short of a picnic for it is not evidence based and pure fiction. And as far as I know, LaRouchites just like to distort the truth without having developed an economic concept let alone a unified economic theory.
It is interesting that these people would swallow the La
Rouche stuff because frequently La Rouche attacks the Mont Pelerin Society but even then what he has to say is rubbish. Some of his Australian foot soldiers are regularly on the ground in the Melbourne CBD, amongst other things, trying to convince people that Australia is currently in the midst of a hyper-inflation rivaling the one that hit Germany last century. I asked them, if that’s true where is the evidence? Where are the people being paid twice a day and taking their pay home in wheel-barrows? Show me the twice daily or more price changes in shops. It is amazing the nonsense one can spout and still manage to attract devotees.
John H, we group people together on the basis of shared beliefs all the time. Why should we treat the folks who think that Rachel Carson killed 40 million people differently from truthers and birthers?
@John Humphreys “Do you think it is appropriate to link people to LaRouche on the grounds that they have some over-lapping beliefs.”
No, I think it’s appropriate to link them when it’s clear, as in the case of DDT, that their opinions are derived from LaRouche sources, peddled to them by tobacco hacks. As I mentioned, the case of AGW is one that goes the other way – the LaRouchites get their view from the mainstream right, and amplify the conspiracy component.
I note that over at Andrew Norton’s John Humphreys grouped together John Quiggin and Graeme Bird, claiming that hey were both “extremists” about climate science.
I got into a huge verbal slinging match with one of the LaRouchites on the ANU campus. Interestingly enough, he ended up calling me a fascist becuase of my support for the distinctly classical liberal concepts of economic freedom and individual liberty. I note that LaRouche is a huge fanboy of FDR’s New Deal (as are many neo-cons) and has put forward the idea of nationalising the banks and establishing a new set of international regulations and other restrictions on the market, which to me puts him ideologically alongside people such as Paul Krugman. Indeed, when someone asks me to name a climate change denialist on the left, I would have unhesitatingly said Lyndon LaRouche. His attitude towards free markets is pretty lukewarm at best.
I think JQ has obfuscated the issue somewhat by using the left-right spectrum. Two of my economics professors come to mind as being supporters of free market policies and associated with the CIS, while still following the scientific consensus on climate change. The Kenyan classical liberal economist James Shikwati has written a lot on agricultural techniques that will reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Even Ron Paul believes in climate change and has proposed several measures to cut emissions and encourage the development of alternative energy, such as drastically reducing the size of the US military presence. “Max Gladwell” is the invention of some very environmentally-minded Ayn Rand worshippers, who no doubt are inspired by John Galt’s invention (from Atlas Shrugged). And Daniel Hannan (UK conservative MP) said something that still resonates very strongly with me, that “we cannot let environmental matters become the exclusive domain of the left”. Just because some choose to take a pro-business approach by choosing to ignore a particularly inconvenient externality, doesn’t mean they all deserve the same condemnation.
Nonetheless, my reservations about climate change (or more accurately, the policies designed to mitigate it) were awakened when I noticed that many advocates of a planned economy (and you can visit virtually any Marxist or socialist website) are inevitably climate change alarmists. I imagine if you could somehow run a regression analysis on climate change alarmism with the independent variable being degree of support for a planned economy, there would be a near perfect correlation. Of course, around the time of the collapse of communism, most anti-capitalists jumped on board the environmentalist bandwagon, so I think we can be excused for some of our skepticism. Also, some of their irrational Gaia-worshipping Chiken-Little-ism is particularly disconcerting. After wall, why the DDT ban was probably justified, Norman Borlaug faced a hell of a lot of irrational condemnation from green groups in bringing about the “Green Revolution”.
By the way, I should have added in the post above that I am aware that comparing LaRouche and Paul Krugman in such a way ignores the fact that their opinions differ dramatically in other ways, which should be obvious.
You’re all pretty panicked at the public dropping its superstitious fear of global warming, aren’t you?
Sea-bass, I am a bit thick and slow these days but can you explain as to why the quality of air in Europe has suddenly improved? Is it due to a natural phenomena, a miracle and/or some factor.
John Fast, the post topic is the mythical ban on DDT. If you’d like your name added to one of the lists above, please say so.
I’ve deleted a comment retracted by the commenter. Thanks for doing this voluntarily – JQ
Tim,
Just out of interest, where did the “modern” green movement spring from and what was it’s founding date? I presume, from your comment, you must be able to give precise dates and show why it owed nothing whatsoever to what had come before.
I’ve deleted a comment retracted by the commenter. Thanks for doing this voluntarily – JQ
I take back the comment about your character, Andrew, which was unwarranted and which I now regret.
Since the last two comments of mine have contained snark bordering on the hostile, which are probably on the edge of breaching Prof Quiggin’s comments policy, I’ll make no more comments on this thread.
Tim Macknay, what is wrong with you? Don’t you know that the Green Movement has influenced the Italian Prime Minister’s conservative views for he loves his greens and cannot go without an extra root or two.
That’s enough along those lines – JQ
@Tim Macknay
“Not content with Climate Change denial and the DDT myth, “sea-bass” invents a new rightwing myth – that environmentalists opposed the green revolution.”
Yes, I just invented a new right-wing myth – my source for this being the notable propagator of right-wing myths, Wikipedia.
If you want to see a smoking gun, Jen Marohasy, until recently a director with the IPA, routinely features a LaRouchite guest poster. Note how the guest poster links to LaRouche sources, including 21st Century Science, in this post http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002176.html
Sorry John, I promise to be good. But to answer Andrew Reynolds question, the concerns of modern-day Greens which took shape during the 1960s is not too dissimilar from those held by the early trade unionists. This was vindicated in the 1842 Chadwick Report on Sanitary Conditions and others detailing the effects of pollution and rampant diseases upon the working class in England.
John Quiggan bloggers
Since you have no intention of making a useful comment, and can’t even spell my name when it’s printed in front of you, I think we can do without your contributions, JF. Consider yourself permanently banned. Don’t let the swinging doors hit you on the way out
I accidentally posted on the other thread, but there used to be this online “newspaper” (back nearly ten years ago before all these blogs came out) called The New Australian that was always banging on about the “genocide” caused by the Green movement’s supposed banning of DDT. it was a few years ago now does anyone remember it, or knows who ran it? I googled it today and it seemed to have vanished.
by the way, thank you personally John for your stepping up to the plate in putting that hoax to rest.
jquiggin@#13 October 14th, 2009 at 10:24
Pr Q, I am sorry to derail the discussion too much from the subject of Right-wing delusionism, which I agree is the more pressing problem at the moment. But the general problem of intellectual delusionism still remains and afflicts both sides of politics. It must be addressed or else we will be condemned to ideological Ground Hog day on Culture, History and Science Wars.
In any case its a little more fun and profit than ritualistic denunciations of soft targets like Milroy or Bolt. You might want to step up into a more competitive league.
I am second to no one in my “caution about advances in genomic science”, you’ll get no talk from me on specific genes for IQ or EQ just yet. The conservative anthropologists I correspond with are not invested in “just-so” stories about evolutionary history or publicity hound “discoverers” of special behavioural genes (such as God gene or gay gene). The “Old Adam” Right has spent quite a bit of time demolishing such nonsense from both the “Blank Slate” Centre and the “Noble Savage” Left.
Evo-psychos are cop-out wimps who do not represent mainstream the anthropological science of human bio-diversity, as typified by figures such as Jensen, Eysenck, Gottfriedson, Sailer, Cochran, Lahn, Risch and Edwards. Although some results from evo-psycho in relation to gender do confirm the Cultural Right’s long-held prejudices (patriarchy is inevitable).
Its true that some “ultra-Darwinists” have taken the genetic paradigm way beyond reason. Intellectuals such as Dennet and Darwin have made absurd claims for the all-encompassing theoretical efficacy of Darwinian theory. Very ably mocked and criticised by both Gould and Stove. But, guess what, these folk tend to be drawn from the Left-liberal part of the ideological spectrum. I don’t see why the Darwinian Right should be tarred with their brush.
Pr Q says:
The successful reception of the Intervention represents an admission of colossal failure for the “indigenous self-determination” faction Left-liberalism, equivalent in its own way to the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Under the Left-liberal regime we were heading in the wrong direction – exacerbating, rather than ameliorating, the anomic tendencies ever-present in the post-modern era. I should add that the problem here is the “liberal”, rather than “Left”, side of this hyphenate.
Undoubtedly “the political Right” will have its hands full restoring law and order in the administration of remote indigenous communities. Although some of these “intractable problems” are most likely grounded in unmentionable and explosive area of race. I see zero evidence that Left-liberals are willing to even acknowledge, let alone deal with, this gorilla squatting in the living room.
Under a more “corporal” regime (whether Left- or Right-wing in ideological complexion) we can at least stop the rot and start to rebuild ravaged social structures. I know about these problems first hand from the people who originally dealt with them, the “Outside Man” in New Guinea, missionaries, much maligned Aboriginal Protection officers etc. Nothing new under that sun etc
Pr Q says:
This looks to me like a discreet back-pedal coming from the man who not so long ago rubbished the rubbisher of the Blank Slate. “Extreme social constructionism” is not “pretty marginal these days”. It is still the conventional wisdom, so far as the intersection of policy and the academy is concerned. Try to find a hint of biological realism in such areas such as family law, immigration, education, financial regulation and you will quickly get marching orders.
Only in health policy is the social constructivist dogma about race being questioned. Here the lives of people of color are at stake, so there is less tolerance for lies here.
Pr Q says:
I have to admire the audacity of a Left-liberal claiming ownership of the “nature-nurture” position this late in the game. Unfortunately the existence of internet archives makes such bluffs rather easy to call.
To correctly state the case: the “standard Left-liberal view…of the nature-nurture question…these days” is that “race is a biologically meaningless” social construct. A view recently affirmed by the author of this blog.
I challenge Pr Q to name one prominent Left-liberal who has come out as a race or gender realists over the past generation. The only ones I can recall who took this position that were James Watson and Larry Summers. And we know what happened to them.
In recent times the virus of social constructivism has tended to infect the Right. Most conspicuously on the part of GW Bush whose policies on invading Iraq, immigrating Hispanic labour and indebting the minority housing market are premised on such monumental ignorance.
More generally, Right-liberal intellectuals have fallen over themselves to second the Left-liberal social constructivist consensus. You can see this every other day in the columns of the New York Times where house conservative David Brooks tries to wriggle and squirm his way out of the implications of the anthropological realism.
Pr Q says:
Again applause is warranted for this cheeky ideological bait and switch. The correct term for the scientific study of man is anthropology. But what passes for “anthropology” in the 20th C was long since ruined by frauds and fools like Boas and Mead.
The “opposing position” to liberal social constructivism is now socio-biological realism. Back in the real world this unexceptional nature-nurture “hybrid” position has been doggedly laid out by the Cultural Right, despite a continual rain of calumny from the Left. Murray, Sailer are all anthropological “hybridists” – why else would they get exercised by “family values”?
The reason for the periodic renaming the “nature” position has nothing to do with it being “such a failure” on an intellectual level. The HGP and Cavalli-Sforza’s principle components analysis more or less fits Billy Hughes classification of mankind. Not much good news here for Left-liberal social constructivists here, which is why the more prominent among them are calling for a ban on such research.
The periodic renaming of the “nature” position has occurred because cultural conservatives in the academy have been “on the run”, desperate to avoid political persecution owing to the systematic delusionism and dishonesty in academia on this subject. Largely perpetrated by Cultural Left-liberals under the guise of politically correct “cultural sensitivity”.
This is a shameful state of affairs and its way past time that Left-liberals started owing up to their ideological knavery and intellectual folly in this department of knowledge. This is why Cultural Rightists get a little impatient with Cultural Leftists talking at length about delusionism. Pot calling kettle etc.
This issue has major political implications. The Centre-Left still faces a massive road block to implementing its policy program until it deals with “the cultural question”. In late 2007 Pr Q proclaimed, on the eve of victories by Rudd and Obama, suggested it was time for “mopping up operations in the Culture War”. A little while later he wondered which parties would fill “the hole in the political landscape”.
Unfortunately the answers to these questions have not been music to Left-liberal ears. In the US the Culture War still rages, largely as sub-text to the Who-Whom of health care reform. And in the EU it turns out that parties like the BNP, rather than the Greens, are filling the hole in the political landscape. This is a moment when the Left should be cleaning up.
These issues hinge on the kind of questions that, guess what, have been ruled as out of court by Left-liberal anthropological delusionists. We have been here before. The “nationalities question” long vexed social-democrats. So at some stage there is going to have to be a showdown at the OK Corrall because “this town ain’t big enough for the two of us…”
It’s called censorship, John.
Oh dear, not another whining rightwinger who doesn’t understand property rights. Read the comments policy, then go away
I won’t swear to this, but I think that the man who produced THE NEW AUSTRALIAN was named Gerald Jackson. There seems to be something similar (perhaps run by the same person, I don’t know) called BROOKESNEWS (http://www.brookesnews.com/).
@Jack Strocchi
On the contrary, I’m repeating the point I made in my critique of Pinker, that the Blank Slate is a strawman caricature of a position (almost) nobody actually holds. It’s the mirror image of the caricatured “biology is destiny” position that is commonly used on the opposite side of the debate to set up their opponents. I spelt all this out in my review – maybe you should reread it.
There is a large literature on behavioural genetics – I don’t think Pinker is seen as a significant contributor. Certainly not when I was doing my PhD developing statistical methods for analysisng brain function that could be used in genetics studies. That was a while ago now though – perhaps he has become more significant in the field in the last decade – it’s not an area I’ve kept up in. It seems to me John that you are using the same strawman strategy – by attaching Pinker circa The Blank State to people who are workng in the fields of evolutionary psych / behavioural genetics.
Nanks, I may have been unfair to lower case evolutionary psychology, which seems to be aimed at making a break from the Cosmides/Tooby/Pinker version of Ev Psych on which, I think, Jack is relying for the suggestion that science has refuted the views of the left.
Obviously there is room for a sensible and realistic research program in this area, but my advice would be to avoid the term evolutionary psychology, as having been irreversibly tied to the kind of program put forward by Pinker.