Metaphor, Sociobiology, and Nature vs. Nurture: The Biological Battle o

Metaphor, Sociobiology, and Nature vs. Nurture The Biological Battle of the Century Ladies and Gentlemen I am proud to enter one of the biggest and longest-running biological battles of the century Tonight we recap the surprising nature vs. nurture fight. The following pages will explain the highlights, but if you want to learn almost this war in its entirety, youll find the blow-by-blow account available to the public in Connie Barlows collection, From germanium to Selfish Genes, in a chapter entitled Nature, Nurture, and Sociobiology. What began this broil of the biologists? Was it a woman? No. Was it a war? No. It was a metaphor. And the metaphor states that society is an organism. This metaphor believes that individuals in a society work unitedly in order to function like an organism. But this isnt the disputethe real fight lies within the question, How is this organism organized? In other words, do we inherently possess the knowledge to function like an organism or are we ta ught this skill? Here come the returning champs now In the soft CornerThe Returning Champs The Anti-Sociobiologists Weighing in with a professor from Harvard, a chair of neurobiology from the Open University, and a chair of psychology from Northwestern University, the anti-sociobiologists defend the musical theme that genes and environment work together, much like a dance, in which the individual is taught social behavior. In an excerpt from their book, Not in Our Genes, theorists Richard Lewontin from Harvard, Steven Rose from the Open University, and Leon Kamin from northeastern University propose, as the title suggests, that social behavior is not genetic. Rather, it is taught or influenced by an individuals surrounding environment... ...as hard, scientific evidence, both are lacking. For example, the sociobiologists cannot prove that altruism is a gene, yet the anti-sociobiologists cannot prove otherwise. Thus, the both the sociobiologists and the anti-sociobiologists attemp t to answer how an organism is organized with theoryand neither have produced a hypothesis that is agreed upon by a consensus. Yet both positions assume that the metaphor that society is an organism is a commonly accepted idea. Robert Wright reflects my skepticism perfectly when he warns, this blurring of the line among society and organism is a delicate matter (150). It appears that, at least for the time being, both sides are going to have to agree to disagree. Work Cited Barlow, Connie, ed. From Gaia to Selfish Genes Selected Writings in the Life Sciences.Cambridge, Massachusetts MIT University Press, 1991.