It seems to me that "hard-wiring" is a taboo concept among
"humanities" people: mention of the notion always seems to excite a
stronger reaction than it merits.
I would suggest that "humanities" people systematically overrate the
power of culture, not only because they esteem cultural activities
very highly, but also because they have a nagging fear that the value
of culture is in fact rather insecure, that there are other,
implacably malevolent, forces that threaten to devalue it. The trouble
is that it is difficult to say what the foundations of cultural value
are. The worry is that they may fall under suspicion of circularity:
culture determines the value of culture, according to criteria that
are not easily demonstrated not to be arbitrary. What makes an
"expert" in the arts an expert?
There is among scientists a good deal of debate about the degree and
nature of the "hard-wiring" of behavioural/psychological traits in
human and other animals, and I shouldn't imagine that there are many
scientists who wouldn't lament or at least want to qualify the term
itself. Still, they seem to think it's worth debating. But it's true
that "hard-wiring" seems an odd way to talk about traits and
predispositions that, even if indisputably present, would by virtue of
the complexity of the systems in which they were embedded be subject
to very considerable variations in expression. Human beings are
fortunately very good at thwarting, diverting or inverting their
instincts. However, this aptitude would be of no account if we didn't
have instincts to thwart, divert and invert.
Many of the objections people raise to the idea that human brains can
be relatively "male" or "female" seem to me to be based on a wilful
refusal to understand the meaning of statistics. Mind you, that is
also true of much of the excitement other people seem to have about
the same idea.
Dominic
--
// Alas, this comparison function can't be total:
// bottom is beyond comparison. - Oleg Kiselyov
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