Word: human
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Furthermore, Emmerich "wonders how DeVore can make such a statement [on the narrow cleft between humans and other species] when the human evidence for his theories is simply nonexistent." Evidence is sparse at the moment, and this may be a valid criticism of the paradigm but I am sure Mr. Emmerich is not at all familiar with the body of data being generated to support sociobiological theory. To say it is "simply nonexistent" is to engage in a polemic which is neither fair nor scholarly correct...
...this point in the article, I could have felt that Mr. Emmerich was taking a rather strong position against sociobiology but one which, in the spectrum of human opinion, is as justifiable and allowable as any other. Yet when J. Wyatt concludes that "It [sociobiology] serves as a powerful force of legitimization for the elites of a hierarchical society that is kind to those on top and harsh to those on the bottom." (Anyway, what kind of sentence is this!) I must take strong objection. If, with any degree of writing skill and thematic continuity Emmerich employed in composing...
...major details wrong. First, DeVore has indeed "observed" baboons, but he, like Emmerich, has only heard about insects and elephant seals secondhand. Second, Emmerich criticized DeVore for having theorized about humans without being among "those scientists who actually studied human beings and societies." In fact, DeVore is an anthropologist, and his two career-long research interests have been observing baboons and observing the culture of the Kung bushmen. DeVore did refer to these cross-cultural observations of his in his talk...
...chaos of untested and untenable extrapolations." This single phrase indicates he ignored the major portion of DeVore's speech which explained how the consistent findings by a wide variety of researchers support specific behavioral theories. To cover his bets Emmerich says that zoologists should not try to explain human behavior. He mentions the surprising genetic similarity between man and other relatives but it does not occur to him that we probably share some basic behavioral genes as well as some basic anatomical genes. He claims DeVore made "unverifiable conjectures" and says "human evidence for his theories is simply nonexistent." Obviously...
...fact, DeVore pointed out that humans exhibit a wider array of possible social behaviors than any other single species, but still an array smaller than that of all other species combined. Thus, by carefully studying not only humans but also the social behavior of other species, be they ants, herring gulls or chimpanzees, we may learn something which is applicable to ourselves. Sociobiology is more of a pure scientific discipline than Emmerich allows for. The elitist politics are injected by him, not DeVore, Wilson, Trivers or any other serious sociobiologist. In fact, sociobiology stresses the cross cultural unity of mankind...