tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post3118904713144872598..comments2024-03-22T15:55:34.030-04:00Comments on Evo and Proud: Claude Lévi-Strauss. The refusal to collaboratePeter Frosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04303172060029254340noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-91757041198412155242011-02-13T07:43:02.072-05:002011-02-13T07:43:02.072-05:00Thank you so much for assembling this material – w...Thank you so much for assembling this material – which I only discovered today. <br /><br />I was already aware of the 1971 UNESCO speech, and of his statements on overpopulation, but this larger context was extremely useful.<br /><br />Essentially:<br /><br />CLS gradually receded from some of the simpleminded blank slate thinking he had imbibed from France Boas – along with the vast majority of influential US American cultural anthropologists, none of whom seem to have ever reconsidered their assumptions.<br /><br />The recent split between the physical and cultural anthropologists in the AAA exemplifies the situation quite well.<br /><br />The modern life sciences as a whole, with their basis in genetics, which has in essence confirmed Darwin's principle of Natural Selection, are totally irreconcilable with Boasian blank slate thinking.<br /><br />But this is not a conflict WITHIN science, it is a conflict BETWEEN science (which tells us that variation between animal populations, even to the point of speciation, is the norm), and a very aggressive form of political terrorism, these days known as political correctness, which tells us that there cannot be psychological differences between the human races, to say nothing of the ultimate taboo, differences in average cognitive ability.<br /><br />If not propped up by the soft totalitarianism of PC norms and regulations, this nonsensical fiction would have collapsed of its own weight decades ago.<br /><br />It is this kind of political terrorism which apparently led the CLS to denounce E.O. Wilson and sociobiology, which was after all just a new name for evolutionary psychology, something he had embraced quite explicitly in his 1971 speech. <br /><br />This was a terrible act of cowardice, and exemplifies the way in which even powerful figures can be cowed by political correctness.<br /><br />I recently completed my Ph.D. in a humanities subject at an Ivy League university, and at this point, I do not have the stomach to be associated with contemporary academia, where a combination of collapsing standards of political correctness has led to a total intellectual debacle, to a carnival of fraud, bluffing, and empty rhetoric.<br /><br />if I were to take up a teaching position, I would have to face the fact that most of my colleagues are uneducated in the basics.<br /><br />One of the factors leading to the certifiable brain death of most young academics is the fact that they're never expected to articulate their own positions adequately, nor to confront opposing points of view.<br /><br />Speaking as a lifelong leftist, I find it horribly tragic that my side won, that we've institutionalized a dogma with no foundation in science and succeed in silencing the opposition, i.e. the scientific fact about that all important topic, racial difference.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-13328714588224963032010-08-10T04:48:15.450-04:002010-08-10T04:48:15.450-04:00Also read his Unesco at 60:
http://dio.sagepub.co...Also read his <i>Unesco at 60</i>:<br /><br />http://dio.sagepub.com/content/54/3/5.abstract<br /><br />Excerpts here:<br /><br />http://songlight-for-dawn.blogspot.com/2008/04/rather-surprising-endorsement-of-basic.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-1783141498693337632010-02-08T20:41:52.998-05:002010-02-08T20:41:52.998-05:00Tod,
Your vitamin D references have proven invalu...Tod,<br /><br />Your vitamin D references have proven invaluable. I have a manuscript of vitamin-D metabolism that owes a lot to your assistance. Thanks!<br /><br />Eugene,<br /><br />But there are also low-trust societies that are ethnically homogeneous. When I was studying in Russia, I noticed that Russians generally have a low level of trust toward other Russians (unless they're close relatives or longstanding friends).<br /><br />Ben10,<br /><br />My understanding is that Vichy France also had restrictions on Jewish employment in certain occupations. In any case, this wasn't a subject that Lévi-Strauss ever obsessed about. I simply mentioned it to show that he came to his views on this subject despite his background.Peter Frostnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-3663193884940377482010-02-08T12:59:23.798-05:002010-02-08T12:59:23.798-05:00OK, so, Levi-Strauss suffered from racism in 1940....OK, so, Levi-Strauss suffered from racism in 1940. I won't comment on the man in particular since i don't know him and he looks rather sympathetic, but I want to say that: BEFORE the war, Levi-Strauss co-religionars were already over-represesented in the french academic and justice system. Yes, jews suffered from pre-war anti-semitism, but they were still at the good spots in the french society, they can't complain about that. During the war, jews were denied those positions in OCCUPIED France. But as soon the war was over, overepresentation of jews in media, government, justice and academic resumed to attain the submits we can observe today in France. The situation would be a little bit different if jews were victims of racism AND denied the privileged positions in the society, this has never been the case and beside those 4-5 years during the war, they didn't suffered any material discriminations in the french 20th century.Ben10noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-62912237146358168202010-02-06T20:49:04.377-05:002010-02-06T20:49:04.377-05:00Regarding the statement "it is hard to see ho...Regarding the statement "it is hard to see how a civilization could benefit from another one’s way of life."<br /><br />Studies show that in places where multiculturalism is actively encouraged and takes hold, the level of trust among people decreases:<br /><br />From Wikipedia:<br /><br />"Harvard professor of political science Robert D. Putnam conducted a nearly decade long study how multiculturalism affects social trust.[5] He surveyed 26,200 people in 40 American communities, finding that when the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, the more racially diverse a community is, the greater the loss of trust. People in diverse communities "don’t trust the local mayor, they don’t trust the local paper, they don’t trust other people and they don’t trust institutions," writes Putnam.[6]"<br /><br />Source:<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism<br /><br />That Wikipedia article also states in places that are less multicultural and less diverse, such as Russia and Eastern Europe (as opposed to the West), people give beggars more money, for example, and are more altruistic and trustful; which makes sense since genes are helping "copies of themselves" in the bodies of people who share the same ethnicity.Eugenenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3734925856292601239.post-47036137343353864662010-02-05T06:24:00.537-05:002010-02-05T06:24:00.537-05:00If getting on the tenure track requires proven su...If getting on the tenure track requires proven support of conformist paradigms, then the balance of professorial opinion does not count for very much.<br /><br /> ------------------------ <br /> <br /><br /><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006477" rel="nofollow">Pigmentation and Vitamin D Metabolism in Caucasians: Low Vitamin D Serum Levels in Fair Skin Types in the UK</a>.<br /><br />(Clueless researchers think the light skinned people in the UK are avoiding the sun. Ha!)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.kaluefflab.com/pdfs/publications/2009Touhimma.pdf" rel="nofollow">Vitamin D, nervous system and aging</a>. A mini-review of vitamin D3.<br /><br />"Overall, imbalances in the calcipherol system appear to cause abnormal function, including<br />premature aging, of the CNS."<br /><br />(Includes suberb photo comparison of normal mice with high 'D' ones of the same age)Todnoreply@blogger.com