The Larry Summers controversy has been very eye-opening for me. I have always dissented from godless' contention that intergroup differences when evaluated on the axis of race would undermine liberal, or a Left, political agenda. There are various reasons I am skeptical of this view, though one of them is that races segregate themselves often in even the most liberal of polities. I know many racially sensitive people who live in Imbler who might go days without seeing "a person of color." On the other hand, I am beginning to wonder if denial of sex differences might undermine American liberalism (if not for substantive reasons, at least for guilt-by-association). While the races may separate themselves, and white liberals can always retreat to Vermont, Oregon or some other racially sensitive but "lily white" enclave, men and women are always in contact.

Previously, I have argued against those on the political Right, who though espousing an evolutionary viewpoint themselves, deny that it is necessary to fight the inroads of Creationism in the public school system. After all, most people will not use evolutionary science in their day to day life. But of late I have wondered if perhaps I was looking at it the wrong way, instead of battling Creationism, a healthy dose of genuine evolutionary biology might have been able to head off some of the hyper-nurturant rhetoric on the political Left. Like it or not, people with humanistic educations serve as the core of our "intellectual classes." When they espouse and formulate public policy prescriptions, a knowledge of our evolutionary legacy is rather salient but quite often lacking.

Though there might be dispute over the proximate processes which could result in differences of distribution between the sexes in any particular endeavour, it is the lack of awareness of the compelling ultimate evolutionary roots of sex differences that I believe is the result of a truncated education. Irregardless of the particulars under debate, it seems clear from an evolutionary perspective that there will be salient behavorial differences between a male and a female. Otherwise, we would not see phenotypic specialization in the two sexes, if recombination of genetic material were the only aim we would likely resemble the hermaphroditic state of some worms.

I will not belabor the point about sex differences. Rather, I will point out that many who promote the reality of sex differences in behavorial phenotypes are political liberals (Robert Trivers, Simon Baron-Cohen and Steven Pinker for example). Instead of a traditionalist conservative typology which establishes fixed roles and expectations of men and women, they generally espouse a normal distribution, which implies an intersection between the habits, predispositions and talents of men and women. A further clarification which thinkers of this school often add is that the overlap implies that the sexes should be treated equally before the law because they are all individuals. What I have found rather disturbing is that many on the far Left who assail this school of intellectuals dismiss the statistical distribution as a smoke screen for a hidden categorical black & white typology undergirding radical right political views. In other words, the rhetorical bromides are often directed at a model more in keeping with the norms and forms adhered to and espoused by cultural traditionalists. In the short term this might yield some results, but in the long term, I suspect that this might be fatal to the promotion of the ideal of legal equality before the law of the sexes. My reasoning is simple, men and women live together and raise children together, if they are asked to choose between a typological model of absolute difference and another model of pure socialization, I suspect they will choose the former rather than the latter as more congruent with the facts that they experience and see on a daily basis. A pure socialization model might fly within the ecosystem of the Left and allow verbal gymnasts to score points in battles against their own heretics, but I suspect that in the long run they are going to lose the war in the wider culture.

Addendum: The press is rife is with articles about gene A causing behavior B. There is also the steady production of popular pieces that oversimplify the results of neuro and cognitive science in the realm of the sex differences. No doubt many on the Left are driven crazy by the public's appetite for this sort of thing, but the response should be to clarify and interpret within one's ideological framework the science, rather than simply rejecting it. Unlike many disciplines, science is progressive and it does eventually hone in on the aproximation of the truth. Denial can be maintained for only so long.

Related: Up from ignorance.