Or whether he just defines his terms in a vague series of platitudes.

If, by some strange chance, it turns out that he does not even understand the terms he is using (“conservative” and “liberal”) it may put a debt in his theory of how genetics predetermins humans to be…..errrr, to be things he can not clearly define, errrr, and resorts to platitudes about errrr……

But they I would say the above – as I am predetermined (by a series of causes and effects going back the Big Bang) to believe that determinism is bullshit.

However….

To be fair.

Yes both biology and environment effect human choices – they do not PREVENT human reasoning (humans being beings – i.e. making REAL choices), but they do make reasoning and choice an EFFORT.

And it is harder for some people than for others.

But, hey, no one said this world was supposed to be easy.

Reason (the “I”) is only a “slave of the passions” if we let it be so – if we grit our teeth (till the blood comes – if need be) it need not be so.

As for reason “ought” to be the slave of the passions….

Well you can burn in Hell for that one Davy Hume.

Further, it is not “determinism.” Rather than “survival” by some cellular preconditions through “competition” in adaptations, this school is enquiring into what other factors may be in play in the morphologies of human societies.

Just as the work of Lynn Margulis has established evolution of cell structures by symbiosis, rather than competition or predetermined adaptive characteristics, we have major examples in the development of our social order.

That example has been (and continues) in “collaboration;” the Division of Labor, the development of interdependence, that from about 1730 on began the rapid and steady displacement of self-sufficiency units that previously dominated our social organization.

The study of the “sociological” and psychological factors that are the “soil” in which this shift away from “pure” Darwinian or Hobbesian conclusions is taking root involves conjectures about all the elements that make up the motivating forces of human life.

This is not new Darwinism.

What I found most interesting in the article is near the end, when he talks about the ability of conservatives and liberals (in the modern US sense) to “put themselves in the shoes” of the other. Conservatives were fairly good at it; liberals rather bad. Conservatives can at least understand how liberals think, even if they disagree; liberals can’t even do that. And this is why there is such a divide between the two camps, and why I can’t see it getting any better anytime soon.

Jock:

his notion that some people are born more “conservative” or “liberal” (in the US usage of those terms)

Another comment is still in Smiteville…

I do agree with your overall point, though.

Now, if they had looked at whether people were likely to be statist dependency biased or liberty freedom biased that would be another thing.

I had an essay on political socialisation last semester and it seemed to me that most previous evidence and debate was about nurture experiences rather than nature. Obviously if you were horsewhipped by pater in front of nanny every week you would turn into a Tory

A deficiency in these could lead person to be a Progressive.

It seems fairly obvious that DNA, which is itself an information manipulation system, would further construct different layers of information manipulation systems throughout the different cell types of a body depending on the type of storage/retrieval/processing required by the cell.

Just imagine something fractal like in biomorphic action- from a fairly simple base equation all sorts of data could be passed in various biological forms right from conception to birth and thru toddlerhood without recourse to any conscious intent on the part of the parents.