Word: konner
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...dismayed to see in the January 10 Crimson the uncritical review by Simon J. Frankel of Melvin Koaner's book, The Tangled Wing. Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit. While Konner eloquently makes a number of important points, much of his analysis is seriously flawed by a failure to examine carefully studies he cites as supporting evidence. For instance, in the case of sex role differences, he frequently overstates the evidence supporting the biological hypothesis, and chooses to ignore data supporting the environmental hypothesis...
...powerful effect of the social and cultural environment in influencing human behavior. Numerous other problems with the Dominican study have been pointed out (R. R. Rubin, J. M. Reinisch and R. F. Haskett, Science 211, 1318, 1981). This is only one example of the selective nature of Konner's evidence...
...KONNER'S lucid style is easy to understand even when he ranges into a discussion of nerve cell structure or hormone levels in the blood. It is refreshing to hear from a scientist who can convey so many wide-ranging concepts, and many of them are not that simple so clearly and, at times humorously. In his discussion of the roots of language, he writes. "It is possible that some selection pressure for its emergence came from sexual selection operating on the courtship behavior of males that is to put it bluntly, the male who talked the best line...
What is so striking and impressive about The Tangled Wing is that even as Konner shows how much of behavior is already known to be the result of certain chemical and physical laws in action, and even as he confidently predicts that science will, certainly within the next few decades, unravel almost all the mysteries of human behavior, he still holds onto a sense of wonder at Homo sapiens as some sort of gestalt, a sum greater than and transcending its component parts. And it is just this sense of wonder, he believes, which makes us human. There is, Konner...
...Konner believes humans are losing their sense of wonder but denies that this is due to the increasing advances of science and technology. The latter point is debatable, but if, as he advocates, we chose for "the further evolution of the human spirit," our success will be measurable only in geological time. Perhaps it is a positive reflection on our species that Konner, like any other human being, can only speculate. And wonder...