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From: keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,soc.men,soc.women,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Rape a reproductive advantage?
Message-ID: <1899@cadovax.UUCP>
Date: 13 Jan 88 21:49:19 GMT
References: <517@gtx.com> <5129@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <2201@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <616@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> <358@rruxa.UUCP>
Reply-To: keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle)
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Organization: Contel Business Systems, Torrance, CA
Lines: 61

In article <358@rruxa.UUCP> mjm@rruxa.UUCP (M Muller) writes:
>And Don completes the biological justification for certain human behaviors 
>with his "rerape" scenario.  
>
>The human behaviors which have just been spuriously justified include
>rape by strangers, rape within marriage, and the further victimization 
>of a woman who has been raped by society at large.  Not a bad day's work 
>for sociobiological analysis.

No, I really don't think such scenarios "justify" rape.  If science were
to actually "prove" perhaps that blonde, blue-eyed men had a much higher
tendency towards rape, and that some gene present in them was the cause,
or that it was a product of some evolutionary circumstance, I'd hardly
say that would "justify" rape (Hey, man, it's in my Genes (Jordache)).
While it might work as a legal defense (ala Twinkies), would you rather
not know of the existance of possible contributing biological effects
for fear of rape becoming "normal" and "status quo" due to subsequent
societal "justification"?

Such studies could conceivably however, provide better understanding of 
the reasons behind rape and possibly suggest new means to combat such 
behavior.  If there are biological roots, perhaps they can be approached
biologically, instead of emotionally.  You seem to be recommending:
"I haven't looked so I 
don't know for sure, but I don't want there to be any biological factors, 
so we're just going to pretend there aren't any".

>Don's "science" appears to serve his world view:
>women are objects at men's disposal -- see, even ducks do it.  (Don,
>please show me I'm wrong about this.)

Seems like you read it into his statements to me.  Even if ducks DO do
it, and even if humans do it due to some semi-"natural" (evolutionary
advantage) reason, that doesn't mean it's de-facto OK.

>In an earlier posting, I tried to argue that certain scientific analyses
>are by their natures biased -- that they tend to support the current
>power relationships in society, and to continue the oppression of women,
>minorities, and other socially disenfranchised groups.

In this case, only if you read things into it that aren't there, if you
find what you are "looking" for even if YOU put it there.

>Their approaches 
>-- summarized in the expression "biology is destiny" -- tend to use the 
>type of flawed analogical reasoning that David and Don used in their postings
>(a second, popular technique is to locate some claimed genetic inferiority
>in the out-group, and then to blame the victim for "having" this non-existent
>genetic trait).  My point was that scientists choose their methodologies
>and analytical approaches on the basis of _concepts_, not just data, and
>that their choices reflect the social beliefs as well as their scientific
>beliefs.  And my point was that scientists, like the rest of us, are
>responsible for the choices they make.

Sounds like YOU are interpreting the data on the basis of YOUR concepts,
I did not see David "summarize" with a statment of the sort: "it must be ok,
because there's a biological basis".  YOU are the one that drew that 
conclusion.

Keith Doyle
#  {ucbvax,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd  Contel Business Systems 213-323-8170