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Reply to Waldorf
Author(s) -
GRAY J. PATRICK,
WOLFE LINDA D.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1983.85.4.02a00140
Subject(s) - gray (unit) , citation , library science , art history , history , computer science , medicine , radiology
searchers of the evolutionary biology of social behavior accept the social, methodological, and philosophical rules that constitute scientific discourse. These rules are brought to bear on the type of speculations discussed in our paper. We were concerned with the use of some aspects of sociobiological theory in a field of discourse located outside of science. A study of the use of sociobiological concepts in popular discourse is not a rejection of the discipline's scientific status. We believe the scientific community's judgment on the validity of sociobiology will be made on scientific grounds, independent of the success of sociobiology in popular discourse. We note, on the other hand, that the rejection of an idea by the scientific community does not automatically extinguish the idea from popular discourse. This is demonstrated by the resilience of the essentialistic concept of race in the Western world.