Signs of a New Life Science

2010-09-07
By

Googling around on the internet, it is clear that there is formidable intellectual potential out there. Sites like A Voice for Men and The Spearhead are tackling the very foundations of psychology as they relate to the differences between men and women, albeit from a practical rather than theoretical perspective. This is paradigm-busting stuff, but we are stuck in the terminology of a mainstream, linear science that is increasingly failing to remain relevant. References to the hunter-gatherers of the Pleistocene to account for the evolution of Homo Sapiens don’t help us. We can do better than this. We need to explore fresh perspectives. One such potential is provided in the newly emerging field of biosemiotics, and the recent New Scientist article provides an excellent introduction. My own thinking in the articles that I’ve had published is based on a biosemiotic perspective.

This New Scientist article is a must-read for anyone wanting to break out of the genes-as-cause explanation for life, the universe and everything.

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  • ActaNonVerba

    the idea is not so bad. the practical appllication scares me. i can see it being hijacked by feminists to bolster their female “ways of knowing” nonsense–i.e. our opponents can never understand us so they need to just do what we say.

  • Stephen Jarosek

    Actually, ActaNonVerba, a few decades ago feminists were falling over themselves to embrace the life and social “sciences” of meaning, such as semiotics, in the misguided belief that these will help them dismantle The Patriarchy. Identities associated with this trend included Margaret Mead. But I saw feminists abandoning this approach when it began to dawn on them that a “science of meaning” holds women equally accountable with men for all that is good and bad in culture. They’re done with it, if they know what is good for the survival of their toxic agenda. There is no other theoretical framework that can compellingly hold women equally accountable with men for everything that passes for cultural reality.

    By contrast, mainstream theories such as Evolutionary Psychology (EP) can provide interpretations based on empirical evidence to win some battles, but EP provides no explanatory power whatsoever as to motivations – how and why men and women make the choices they do. And for this reason, EP is of little assistance to us in winning the war.






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