Notwithstanding her personal experiences, the position that Harden adopts is somewhat of a strawman, and a favorite of those in the behavior genetics community as it allows them to sidestep problems in the field and draw attention to their own research. I think there's some overlap between the blind spots this entails and what the SA article is pointing to. I say this as someone who studied behavioral ecology (basically sociobiology) in college, and has done research in this area as well as behavior genetics.

Before you proceed to comment on Harden, or Wilson, or the SA piece, ask yourself this question: what experimental evidence is there that some gene-based approach to a given sociobehavioral problem in humans in general provides a powerful, rigorous solution to that problem?

The answer is pretty obvious.

I'm not raising this question to play some methodological "gotcha" card. I think this is a case where the lack not only of experimental evidence, but of a scientific culture that avoids the pursuit of such evidence, says as much about the evidentiary basis of the claims, but also the motives and general orientation toward the problems being discussed.

That is, not only is there a lack of experimental evidence regarding sociobiological claim X, Y, or Z in humans as a scientific matter, but the field and its explanations have a paradigm that avoids manipulation or changes of these things as an implicit ideal. The problem that critics have with Harden isn't the focus on genes as explanatory mechanisms, it's the lack of experimental evidence for her claims, and a perspective that sees genes as fixed and as something to be "worked around". Typically in such research you have a model that asserts some "general genetic background" in an individual that has longstanding effects, without specifying such effects or doing any research to mitigate such effects biologically.

Take research on educational achievement for example. In Harden's paradigm, the point is to identify individuals based on generic "black box" genetic risk (yes, polymarker risk is black box), and to tailor their educational curriculum and vocational planning around this, to better match their identity. However, if you really truly believed some genetic risk factors were in play, wouldn't you work to mitigate those genetic factors biologically? Via drugs, attempting to outline neurobiological pathways, or whatnot? What about the risk of labeling such individuals incorrectly? Is there any benefit in using "genetics" as an explanatory perspective for an individual, beyond historical status? Research suggests you get the same outcomes if you just use past performance instead, without any assumptions about causality. And there are individuals whose trajectories are anomalous with regard to genetic explanation. Shouldn't we be focused on understanding that?

Where this dovetails with criticisms of Wilson is a similar kind of genetic predestination paradigm. Maybe Wilson wasn't deterministic per se, but that's strongly implied by his theories. Even within the field of behavioral ecology, there was a sort of shift toward more cognitive and general-function models that allowed for greater flexibility in behavior.

By the point Wilson published his Sociobiology text, it should have been apparent to anyone wading into the literature on human behavior that there were certain sandpits to avoid. Not just politically, but theoretically as well. And this is the racism being referred to. It's an insensitivity to sociocognitive-cultural factors that are paramount in understanding human behavior, at a time when this should have been abundantly clear to anyone studying behavior.

It's telling that the responses to claims of racism made in the SA piece are along the lines of "but Wilson was such a kind person" and "such an environmentalist" as if it's not possible to be a strong environmental advocate and racist at the same time. In fact, this is a classic rhetorical device in defenses of racism, regardless of the truth of any claims about Wilson per se.

I have respect for Wilson, and think there's a lot about his career to learn from in our current age (note his Wikipedia page says nothing about grant dollars, only his ideas and writings). I do not want to say that Wilson as a person was racist, as I that's a dangerous game to play. I also don't want to defend the SA piece as some pinnacle of writing. But I also don't think the SA piece is entirely unreasonable, and regardless of how one characterizes Wilson as a person, I think there's a fair argument that sociobiology as a paradigm as applied to humans is racist, if for no other reason that it explicitly ignores the sociocultural context critical to understanding human experience. You can handwave about this and say "well sociobiology isn't meant to explain everything" but aren't cognitive-cultural phenomena the crux of its limitations? Would that have really been nonobvious in 1975?

The same empirical issues come up with cultural causes. If I recall correctly, Harden says that family income has a 15-20% impact on educational achievement, which is about the same range for genes responsible for intelligence. Or something along those lines. Basically, there are both cultural and genetic factors that can be measured has having some percentage likelihood of influence. To the extent we can rely on such studies. Which again is an empirical issue with reliably understanding something as complex and hard to control for as human behavior. So if one says we can't empirically do that for genes, I don't know why the cultural factors would fare much better.

> I think there's a fair argument that sociobiology as a paradigm as applied to humans is racist, if for no other reason that it explicitly ignores the sociocultural context critical to understanding human experience.

What makes humans so special that genes wouldn't have an influence on behavior? I also don't understand why that position is racist. Genes clearly have an influence on other biological traits. Are we treating the brain as a non-biological entity? Is human culture so different from anything other animals do, that it makes genetic factors obsolete?

> You can handwave about this and say "well sociobiology isn't meant to explain everything" but aren't cognitive-cultural phenomena the crux of its limitations?

It should explain what it can and no more. Same with culture influences. The problem is thinking that it can only be one or the other, otherwise <insert bad thing that happened in the past>.

So Down’s Syndrome is socially constructed?

As for it being a straw man, you’re literally writing that in a thread about someone taking a maximalist position like that.