Re: [Marxism] Richard Lewontin on Darwin

[sabocat59@xxxxxxx]

Lewontin writes:

Nevertheless he makes a good case that the current state of the human genotype 
makes us susceptible to physiological and developmental challenges that did not 
exist for our remote ancestors. The major changes from the usually minimal 
hunter-gatherer animal and plant diets to high-calorie sugar intakes cause 
great stress to our carbohydrate metabolism. In a curious contradiction of 
modern life, while in many human populations, for example in Africa, people are 
dying young from overwork and undernourishment, people in technologically 
advanced societies are dying at a greater age from overeating and too little 
physical activity. We cannot count on natural selection to deal with the 
problem. 

--------------------------------------

Talk about begging the question.  

Of course natural selection cannot be counted on to address the mismatch 
between faster rates of culture change and slower rates of biological change 
for a single species.  

The problem introduced above has everything to do with the metabolic rift and 
imperialism and has absolutely nothing to do with natural selection, except for 
the rather facile observation that natural selection is a glacially slow 
process in contradistinction to culture change.   

A "curious contradiction of modern life"?

Give me a fucking break. 

And the pseudo-objective manner in which he phrases the "problem" leaves no 
doubt that the author is either totally clueless and naive or else 
disingenuously anti-political.  
In other words, a coward. Hardly makes me want to go out and buy Gibson's book. 

Greg McDonald

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