Re: the original post and the "Dr. Science" post beginning: /My gut 
feeling is that when . . . .

/*Please help me to understand what is untrue and what is true.*/
/
Since this list serve is overwhelmingly populated by scientists whose 
very activity consists of constructing tightly reasoned presentations of 
linked data and theory, it is appropriate to argue here for a norm that 
discourages logical fallacies, constructions used in argumentation, 
often with an emotional appeal, that are not logical, that is, do not 
present a tightly reasoned sequence.  Thus, during the recent brush fire 
on this list serve, several have decried /ad hominem /remarks, one of 
the traditional logical fallacies, often colloquialized as /if you can't 
logically counter the argument attack the messenger.

/The post by "Dr Science" is a textbook example of the logical fallacy 
of /poisoning the well, /often colloquialized as /if you don't want a 
presentation to be taken seriously descredit its source.  /As such it is 
inappropriate in a scientific discourse or a discourse about science.  
Truth is where we find it.  Sometime it comes from the mouths of babes, 
sometimes from the mouths of our enemies, sometimes buried in a morass 
of lies, and sometimes it appears from some other orifice of the body of 
someone characterized by that orifice.  "Dr Science" has shown the venom 
he has for some operatives who have either put forth unacceptable 
(unscientific or untrue) concepts or associated themselves with 
corporate capitalism or other unsavory behaviors etc,. Now will he show 
the readers of the article whose author he condemns what is untrue about 
it.   I  have not become a supporter of sociobiology or of the author of 
the article by reading it; but neither do i have significant 
disagreement with it.

herb

RELATED COMMENTARY on psychology and sociobiology.

    We should distinguish between application of scientific method and
    science.  A science of ** can be constructed if ** is guided by
    objective, natural laws, which enables a science of it to have
    predictive power.  Scientific method can be applied to any **. 
    Scientific method seeks truth by an inclusive description that
    accounts for historical and current behavior and data associated
    with **.  The application of scientific method, no matter how
    thorough, cannot make its subject into a science if the subject is
    not based on (virtually) immutable, objective laws.  Psychology is
    not on the whole a science, although some sub-fields may deserve
    that claim, in particular experimental investigations of human
    sensory perception.  I believe (an expression that shows that i have
    not done a thorough scientific investigation) that psychologists
    suffer an inferiority complex because it has so often been revealed
    that their theories and predictions of human behavior do not stand
    the test of time and cross-cultural application.  Along came
    sociobiology, a new name with a prestigious father and associated
    with an unquestioned science, biology.  Ah ha, the transition from
    psychology to sociobiology is an easy one.  /Ergo:/ Psychologists
    become Sociobiologists.  The transition is eased by the fact that
    psycholgists are employed to use their understanding of "human
    behavior" to market consumer products of capitalism, while
    sociobiologists are employed to use their understanding of "the
    natural evolved behavioral tendencies" of humans to justify (i. e.
    market) imperialism's greatest outrages.

    Because i never participated in a sociobiology study group, this
    comment may very well repeat stuff y'all know.

hf