blacks, and the like. "In reality," writes Medvedev, "fascism was afraid
of real scientific genetics: in Hitler's Germany a number of genetic insti–
tutes were closed, and outstanding German geneticists were forced to
leave their native land."
The Lysenkoist practice of conducting scientific argument by
calumny, however, persists very much in our own day, particularly when
genes are in question. While the study of the genetic causes of certain
diseases meets with little (although some) resistance, even to ask
whether our genes predispose us toward certain forms of behavior or
influence our intellectual abilities is immediately condemned as "scien–
tifically incorrect." A case in point is a conference planned several years
ago at the University of Maryland on the genetics of criminal behavior.
So much protest was generated by the
mere announcement
of the con–
ference that the National Institutes of Health withdrew the funding
before the meeting could take place. After a three-year battle by the
organizers, the funding was restored and the conference occurred–
accompanied, of course, by the inevitable protesters wanting to shout
down the proceedings. Some participants in the conference expressed
doubt that biology has, as one put it, "anything to add to public dis–
cussions about crime in society"-a perfectly legitimate position, of
course, the premise that the conference was meant to examine. But the
objections had more to do with the uses to which biological evidence
might be put than with evaluating the truth of the evidence. For
instance, Dr. Dorothy Nelkin said in
The New York Times:
"Genetic
explanations are extremely convenient when you are trying to disman–
tle the welfare state. You can identify social problems with biology and
the individual, which deflects responsibility from society." Perhaps in
other venues Dr. Nelkin addresses the science of the topic; here she sim–
ply substitutes the politics of it. One suspects that even if further
research could yield definitive answers to crucial questions about the
relations of genes and crime-or other types of deviant behavior-many
people, including many scientists, would rather not know the answers
than have the answers contravene their political faith.
Thus the whole field of sociobiology appears,
ipso facto,
illegitimate
to "progressive" forces. One of its leading theorists, Edward
o.
Wilson,
states the central premise of sociobiology this way:
Human beings inherit a propensity to acquire behavior and social
structures, a propensity that is shared by enough people to be
called human nature. Although people have free will and the choice
to turn in many directions, the channels of their psychological
