Insofar as it’s a major political movement (i.e a lot less than Dawkins wishes or Milne believes), secularism has narrowly defined aims, and straddles every possible right/left, authoritarian/libertatian, pro/anti-Iraq, blah/more blah divide — just as religion does too.

To some extent, perhaps, although sometimes its not at all clear to me whether or not this gives a fair reflection of where Lewontin is at today. Much of what gets quoted tends to be his older material.

Lewontin has moved on since his critique of Blind Watchmaker and his work with Gould, as has Dawkins and others on the neoDarwinian side and much of the sound and fury of that period now looks a little ridiculous in places as ideas which were perhaps a little crudely expressed 15-20 years ago, causing contention, are starting to be refined and grow in nuance and subtlety.

>>> saying really imprudent things about Israeli influence on US policy

Not imprudent, merely a little politically naive. What was reported was no more than a minor paraphrase of a comment which appears in the God Delusion and Dawkins was doing nothing more than holding up, somewhat admiringly, the example of the Jewish community in the US as being one that punches above its weight in terms of its ability to successfully promote its agendas.

All Dawkins was saying was, in effect, that they seem pretty good at lobbying so it would be nice if atheists could become as good and the only thing he got wrong was that he didn’t understand how easily such a comment could be misconstrued.

With Lewontin its less what he’s been saying so much as the extent to which he’s routinely put up by others as the ‘acceptable face’ of left-wing evolutionary science.

Point taken, but isn’t that a reasonable line for them to take (present the best face and all that?). I’ve only read a few of his NYRB articles (in an essay collection) and they seemed eminently sane, though I wouldn’t claim to agree with all the details. But as I said I haven’t taken the trouble to trace the Marxist background/context/undertones.

What do you mean by “left-wing” — I appreciate this is useful shorthand, but Dawkins is by several usual indicators (being patronizing to Americans as a nation, saying really imprudent things about Israeli influence on US policy, general believer in social responsibility) a typical British left-winger, IMHO.

With Lewontin its less what he’s been saying so much as the extent to which he’s routinely put up by others as the ‘acceptable face’ of left-wing evolutionary science.

interesting take (I have to admit I haven’t read either the O’Neill piece or the Milne piece, life being too short and all that). The whole “Darwinism=nihilism” criticism has always left me puzzled.

re comment #2: what has Lewontin been saying lately? from what little I’ve read of his essays, he struck me as being one of the more reasonable Dislikers of Dennett.

If it were just Seumas you might be right, but then its not just Milne, it’s also Eagleton, O’Neill, Lewontin and a fair few other ideological Marxists all pushing the same basic critiques and the same tired accusations of nihilism and the monkey thing, which was old hat back when T H Huxley ripped on Wilberforce.

Milne’s talking complete hooey but its hooey based on a specific set of assumptions about the world, history, class and human nature which the neoDarwinian brand of atheism rejects and its that that’s behind a fair bit of this, although the Hitch’s involvement makes it all the more attractive a target because of his views on the Middle East.

I think he does a bad job because he’s not really rooted in that tradition. In fact i have a similar article kicking abot which I have yet to finish about how religion can be quite a liberal force, but then I come from a background where religion and culture are very interlinked etc.

So all this academic talk goes a bit over my head, especially since it sometimes doesn’t take into account how things are playing out on the ground in the Middle East now, or worldwide in the past,.