Sunday, February 06, 2005

I'm an Evolcon (No, not "Evil"!)

(Hat tip: Gene Expression

Evolutionary Conservatives. This is an almost wholly intellectual group (e.g., Steve Sailer, John McGinnis, Charles Murray)— not a politician brave enough to stand with them — who have realized two things: first, that lessons of the new science of evolutionary psychology are largely conservative ones about an adamantine human nature, the natural basis of sex roles, and so on; second, that the knowledge gained from the Human Genome Project and the rise of genetic engineering will throw up some fascinating and contentious political issues in the increasingly near future. John McGinnis outlined the conservative lessons of evolution in the December 22, 1997, issue of this magazine. The main obstacle to their acceptance by other conservatives is that, although they actually lend support to the moral rules derived from the Judeo-Christian tradition, they seem to rob them of divine backing by making them merely adaptive. That is a false criticism in logic, since God's laws and successful evolutionary adaptations could easily coincide. But that may not settle the dispute.

Oh, yes!

People argue against genetic links to IQ, sex roles, etc, not because the evidence convinces them, but because they don't like the conclusions.

TangoMan provides a cladogram showing where various blogs stand on these issues. One thing to note: membership on the political right or left is not a good predictor of whether a blogger will accept that change happens, or will try to put the genie back in the bottle.

(I suspect the progressives may also be more willing to accept evolution.)

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