杏吧原创

In Reconstructing Biology: Genetics and Ecology in the New World Order (John
Wiley, $34.95, ISBN 0-471-10917-7), biologist John Vandermeer takes
another look at some of the Big Questions: racial difference, homosexuality, the
environment and so on. The trouble is that too often the answers come from
people who don鈥檛 know their genetics and biology. Very little, says Vandermeer,
can be attributed to underlying biological factors, such as 鈥済ay鈥� genes. There
is no genetic explanation for blacks in the US doing worse on IQ tests than
whites. Likewise, a biological essentialist view of the
environment鈥攚hether it is that it is in the 鈥渘ature鈥� of humans to destroy
it or whether the mere presence of too many people will do the job just as
well鈥攊s taken for granted without any evidence. We are, and the world is,
what we make of ourselves and it.