I agree that the study has too many opportunities for error, but it is a first look at a too long understudied topic.
Consider how biological theory has been brought fully into every other topic besides how our species struggles for power. We don't have genes for immigration reform, but we have genes for territoriality and fear of strangers. We don't have genes for birth control policy but we have genes that govern birth rates. Books such as "Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps" or "The God Gene" proliferate; yet nary a peep about the origins of our two politcal natures that have been similarly described since ancient Greece.
Brack has an interesting site on politcal neurology:
I'm finishing a politcal equivalent to "Why Men Don't Listen" - "The Origin of Political Species" Hibbbing wrote my foreword. My big name publisher backed out, so I just have the electronic version available for now. You can read a huge excerpt at www.politicalspecies.com
My job is to ask the questions that scientists are effectively banned from bringing up themsleves, such as how did our evolution across the cultural explosion the last 60,000 years affect our social instincts?
Having read Hawks' critique, I'm not sure what the big deal is. Hawks, being a good Scientist, is a natural skeptic. He then trots out a list of standard caveats, applicable to all research, and applies them to this paper. Good. And now what?
Until further research is done, the original paper is a suggestive datum, no more. The critique, however, is nearly non-informative.
I agree that the study has too many opportunities for error, but it is a first look at a too long understudied topic.
Consider how biological theory has been brought fully into every other topic besides how our species struggles for power. We don't have genes for immigration reform, but we have genes for territoriality and fear of strangers. We don't have genes for birth control policy but we have genes that govern birth rates. Books such as "Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps" or "The God Gene" proliferate; yet nary a peep about the origins of our two politcal natures that have been similarly described since ancient Greece.
Brack has an interesting site on politcal neurology:
www.neuropolitics.org
I'm finishing a politcal equivalent to "Why Men Don't Listen" - "The Origin of Political Species" Hibbbing wrote my foreword. My big name publisher backed out, so I just have the electronic version available for now. You can read a huge excerpt at www.politicalspecies.com
My job is to ask the questions that scientists are effectively banned from bringing up themsleves, such as how did our evolution across the cultural explosion the last 60,000 years affect our social instincts?
Having read Hawks' critique, I'm not sure what the big deal is. Hawks, being a good Scientist, is a natural skeptic. He then trots out a list of standard caveats, applicable to all research, and applies them to this paper. Good. And now what?
Until further research is done, the original paper is a suggestive datum, no more. The critique, however, is nearly non-informative.