Scientific American does an hit job on E. O. Wilson, calling him a racist

A sad state of affairs for a once great publication, unfortunately.

However, the mantle has been taken up by online publications such as Quanta, Aeon, Edge and Nautilus, as well as various science authors on Medium and Substack.

To pull from OPs url, evolution is true. This could suggest that true is not on one side of the "classical science is a blameless objective virgin" and "classical science is an evil villain" and is instead a third position that integrates the awareness of biological and social processes we are currently afforded and keeps pressing on...

" No but " vs " yes and "

In John McWhorter's recent book, "Woke Racism", McWhorter argues that people like McLemore are adherents of a new religion (he means this in a literal, sociological way) which he calls "The Elect". The Elect's word for "heresy" is "problematic".

McLemore ends with a call to action

"So how do we engage with the problematic work of scientists whose legacy is complicated? I would suggest three strategies..."

and goes on to recommend

1) "Truth and reconciliation", which sounds like all gatekeepers need to be members of The Elect

2) "diversifying the scientific workforce", phenotype is important, I guess

3) "new methods", which really sound like a set of new rules The Elect wish to impose

Sounds like an inquisition.

I am not aware, for example, of any major religious tradition that does not accept human beings as animals. Indeed, I'd have to ask you: what is it to be an animal, in your view, that your straw man religious person would find objectionable? For Aristotle, an animal is just a living organism (and therefore something with a body) with the capacity for locomotion. What makes human beings especially different from all known animals is rationality (and according to an ontological, as opposed to phylogenetic classification, any rational animal, extraterrestrial or not, would qualify as "human"). Those animals lacking rationality (and free choice) have traditionally been called beasts. Perhaps your equivocation trades on the common use of "animal" to mean "beast", but then it is an entirely uninteresting criticism. So yes, there is something special about having a rational nature.

> So we can't look at human sexuality, for example, except in the context of special rules.

This is really vague. What rules? Is that code for morality? As rational animals with the freedom to choose our actions, we are absolutely subject to morality. Beasts that merely react to impulses and have no choice in the matter are not moral agents, but we are because we are rational. Thus a man who rapes a woman is behaving immorally to the degree that he understands what he is doing and to the degree that he has a choice (those with severe mental deficits or suffering from psychosis might be examples of those who cannot be faulted, morally speaking). And what makes certain sexual behaviors wrong? That they frustrates the nature of the human sexual act. These aren't rules, but rather principles governing the teleological order of the faculties involved, and sexuality is not special in this regard, though perhaps dangerous (interesting that you chose that particular example). It is also immoral to lie because speech is intrinsically ordered toward communicating truth (note the presumption we make about speech in this regard; lying would not work otherwise). It is immoral to stick a pencil in your eye because it frustrates the faculty of sight. It is immoral to do drugs because they frustrate the exercise of reason. Happiness is living in conformity with one's nature; misery is to act contrary to it. Human beings struggle with living well, and living badly can be easier than living well, especially once you've accumulated bad habits. It does not follow that departures from what we ought somehow disprove the existence of the ought.

I'd prefer erring on the side of letting people speak, so my problem is less with articles like this and more with the lack of articles saying this is bullshit. I think we have one of these PC freakouts every once in a while and the smart thing to do is just let it pass and let others' outrage help it jump the shark--an unfortunate collective action problem.

It seems like you're making an interesting point and I'd like to understand it.

“And the descriptions and importance of ant societies existing as colonies is a component of Wilson’s work that should have been critiqued.”

We have reason to believe that some such "smart genes" are inherited. That's not very egalitarian, but it is also not racist. The implication is that these smart genes are rare not only in your dispossessed underclass, but rare everywhere. In any place where their promise fails to be nurtured and cultivated, humanity is the poorer for it. By the numbers, if the genes are more-or-less equally distributed, the dispossessed include absolutely many more stewards of these genes than the privileged. Then, it is a crime against society for the privileged to have failed to nurture them wherever possible.

But of course it is not only carriers of "smart genes" who could provide a strong net benefit society as a whole by being well nurtured. Arguably, for every "smart gene" carrier who would give back more than the cost of the nurturing, there are many others who would also effloresce. The only way we know to identify and nurture them all is to nurture everybody and see who blooms. But that would cost money.

"Those who separated by vanity, tended to drift together by similarity of tastes and contempt for others, even though their idiosyncrasy of vanity led to quarrelling among themselves. Separateness became much intensified, thoughts developing in an undesirable way, becoming more and more of a shell, shutting out others. Animal passions were starved out by cold asceticism, instead of being changed into human emotions; sex-passion was destroyed instead of being transformed into love. As a result, they tended towards sexlessness. They formed communities, but those never lasted for long, as no one would listen to each other and everyone wanted to rule. Attempts to help them were met with outbursts of resentment, as they took those attempts as a plan to belittle them. Pride grew stronger, they became cold and calculating, without pity and remorse."