by danbrickman | January 27th, 2012
Like everything “pseudo,” Eric Paulson’s essay on bio-history contains some kernels of intellectual integrity along with a heap of demagoguery. Paulson’s initial assertion, that biology influences history, comports with the now widely accepted positions of reputable historians in their respective fields. He cites both Alfred Crosby and Kenneth Kiple, an historian of African-American History in an effort to tie biological determinism to race. Certainly he misses the mark with Crosby, as the main thesis of Columbian Exchange focused upon the biology of place-not race! In the case of Kiple, Paulson takes a direct quote from the book titled The Caribbean Slave, where Kiple states that “blacks and whites in fact do innately differ in many respects,” and scientifically “race continues to be a viable concept.” Although I haven’t read the aforementioned title, it is noteworthy that the book was published in 1981 by Cambridge University Press. Thus, Paulson is trying to pull an academically disingenuous “sleight of hand” by taking a quote completely out of context from a work written 30 years ago by a distinguished professor in order to forward his agenda. Usually I would honor Mr. Paulson’s PhD. by using the appropriate academic term thesis when describing his essay. Yet, it was apparent when he referred to Jared Diamond, the author of the seminal work Guns, Germs and Steel, as “the Jewish academic non-historian.” that he was positing something other than scholarship.
What seems to perturb Mr. Paulson is the failure of main stream historians to go beyond the assertion that biology interplays with the environment only to the extent that the affected cultural traits created don’t result in a superior/inferior dichotomy. He aims his vitriol at those who separate race from biology altogether and those who accept biological explanations for historic phenomenon but eschew his dichotomous approach, referring to one such historian as a “contortionist.” I better begin to stretch these tight muscles of mine, because I’m sure going to need to be limber!