From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: Dr. Goldberg Replies to "Patriarchy" Debate
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 06:04:20 GMT

        I  have been sending the principal articles from the  Usenet  and 
        Bitnet   discussions   of   "nonpatriarchal   societies,"   "male 
        dominance",  "Goddess  societies," etc. to  Dr.  Steven  Goldberg 
        (author,  "The  Inevitability  of  Patriarchy").  The   following 
        comments  were  received from him, for posting to  the  networks. 
        Immediately  following are his overall comments on  the  debates. 
        Next  is  a letter by Taner Edis posted to the  Bitnet  "skeptic" 
        list, critiquing Goldberg's logic (which I subsequently posted to 
        Usenet  "sci.skeptic"  and  "alt.feminism").  Following  that  is 
        Goldberg's reply to Edis. I should point out that in the material 
        I  sent  Dr.  Goldberg, I did not separate out  the  material  by 
        newsgroup  or mailing list, so some of his references  to  Usenet 
        pertain  to material that originated on Bitnet, although much  of 
        it has been cross-posted.
        
        
                                    Robert Sheaffer
        
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        >>>>>>Steven Goldberg (Dept. of Sociology, CUNY) writes:
        
        1. The attempts (like that of Brian Siano) to refute _Patriarchy_ 
        by   endless   discussions  of  the  (alleged)   political   (and 
        psychological)  purposes  of  the theorist are  doomed  from  the 
        start.  A  political  or  psychological bias  of  a  theorist  is 
        relevant  only if it introduces error in his theory --  otherwise 
        it  is irrelevant. Siano need merely point out such error and  he 
        can succeed where no amount of *ad hominem* accusations of motive 
        can.
        
        *If*  Siano can demonstrate that the theory is incorrect,  *then* 
        it  is  reasonable for him to ask why the theorist erred  and  to 
        examine  the  possibility that bias is responsible.  Put  another 
        way:  the empirical reality he would attempt to explain would  be 
        the incorrectness of the theory. But, if he can not cast doubt on 
        the theory, then his "explanation" is an "explanation" of a  non-
        existent empirical reality and that is a good working  definition 
        of "a waste of time".
        
        2.  While the possibility of replication and examination  of  raw 
        data  render the above true even for the experimentalist  or,  in 
        our   case,   the  anthropological  ethnographer,   it   is   not 
        unreasonable  to  be particularly suspicious of  experimental  or 
        field  research  by  one  who  has  exhibited  strong   political 
        beliefs  outside the work he publishes. If, for example,  someone 
        who  makes  speeches  favoring that  Oregon  proposition  against 
        homosexuals claimed to have done studies of homosexuals and found 
        them  to  have  low IQ's, one would, at the least,  want  to  see 
        whether the research could be replicated.
        
        In  my  case,  none  of  my  work  is  original  ethnography   or 
        experiment. If there is anything original, it is in the theory or 
        logic,  not the empirical evidence. All of my evidence is  easily 
        checked  by anyone living near a library. If my (alleged)  biases 
        have introduced error in my work, anyone can easily discover  the 
        error.
        
        It  is  particularly  telling that many  people  are  willing  to 
        dismiss  all of the anthropological evidence on the grounds  that 
        the  anthropologists have traditionally been men. Aside from  the 
        fact that anthropology has traditionally had far more women  than 
        any  other  social  science  field,  this  criticism  betrays   a 
        total  misunderstanding of the nature of success in  anthropology 
        (or any other academic discipline). Every anthropologist who ever 
        began  a career by doing ethnographic work would have *loved*  to 
        find  that  the  society  he  or  she  described  represented  an 
        exception  to  universality.  Finding  such  an  exception  would 
        guarantee fame and fortune (or at least as much of these -- which 
        is not much -- possible for an academic.) Gough, for example,  is 
        quoted  in  every book on the family because she argues  that  an 
        (Asian) Indian sub-group lacks the family. (Whether it is  *true* 
        that  this  group  -  the Nayar - lack the  family  is  a  subtle 
        question of definition, but my point here is simply that a (good) 
        argument  for  the  existence  of  an  exception  is  what  every 
        ethnographer  would  love. Moreover, for most  of  anthropology's 
        history there *were* men (like Bachofen) arguing for pre-historic 
        matriarchy,  etc.  The reason such theories are no  longer  taken 
        seriously  is  not any feminist contribution, but the  fact  that 
        they  became increasingly untenable as ethnographers  found  more 
        and  more "stone-age"-like societies that failed  to  demonstrate 
        matriarchality even when they were matrilocal and matrilineal.)
        
        3.  The "Inevitability" in the title is there to specify how  the 
        theory  can be falsified (if it is incorrect). Show an  exception 
        --  or  find  that a future exception comes to pass  --  and  the 
        theory  is shown to be incorrect. This is in essence  what  every 
        scientist does when testing a hypothesis; he temporarily  assumes 
        the  hypothesis to be true in order to make as clear as  possible 
        the way in which the hypothesis can be shown to be false if it is 
        false.  It is because feminist writings fail to do  this  (indeed 
        they do the opposite and pretend that unending discussion of  the 
        irrelevant can somehow substitute quantity for quality) that they 
        are such mush.
        
        (NOTE: actually, an exception to _Patriarchy_ would have to be  a 
        society that *has* hierarchy), but one not dominated by males.  A 
        non-hierarchical  society  would not demonstrate that  a  society 
        could have non-male-dominated hierarchy. I don't make a big  deal 
        of  this  subtlety,  since there  has  been  no  non-hierarchical 
        society  --  and  since  there are  many  reasons  to  doubt  the 
        possibility of one. (Once a society has values, it will find that 
        some people approach rewarded behavior, lineage,  characteristic, 
        or  whatever  more  than  do others and  this  alone  would  seem 
        sufficient to guarantee hierarchy even if physiology had  nothing 
        directly  to  do with the universality of hierarchy --  which  it 
        probably does).
        
        4.  Marx might have spoken of the "inevitability"  of  communism, 
        but  he would have to have meant "in the future".  Every  society 
        existing  in his time was an exception to "inevitability" in  the 
        sense I use the word.
        
        Put   another   way:  like  feminism,  the   Marxist   claim   is 
        unfalsifiable;  no  matter  how long societies  fail  to  exhibit 
        communism  (or  non-patriarchy), it can always  be  claimed  that 
        communism  (or  non-patriarchy)  is just around  the  corner.  No 
        exception  (as  I use the term) is sufficient to cast  any  doubt 
        (much less to refute) the claim.
        
        
                            Steven Goldberg
        
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        Date:         Mon, 16 Nov 1992 14:19:15 EST
        Reply-To: SKEPTIC Discussion Group <SKEPTIC%YORKVM1.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
        Sender: SKEPTIC Discussion Group <SKEPTIC%YORKVM1.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
        From: Taner Edis <edis@ETA.PHA.JHU.EDU>
        Subject:      Goldberg and his "logic"
        X-To:         skeptic@vm1.yorku.ca
        To: Multiple recipients of list SKEPTIC <SKEPTIC%YORKVM1.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
        In-Reply-To:  Robert Sheaffer's message of Fri,
                      13 Nov 1992 20:09:32 PST <9211140605.AA16974@eta.pha.jhu.edu>
        Status: OR
        
             Let me, in response to Robert Sheaffer's positive evaluation
        of Goldberg, bring out some points of criticism.  I believe that that
        Goldberg, at times, provides us with a prime example of a "skeptic"
        that relies on a rather superficial application of logic in chasing
        down so-called fallacies.  Just as he asserts that stereotypes are not
        arbitrary but are often grounded in reality, I would say that common
        "fallacies" in reasoning are common for very good reasons.
             Consider two of his contentions, that were apparently
        pronounced in the course of the conference also: (i) bias is only
        relevant if it leads to error; and (ii) studies with negative results
        do not "cancel out" those that are positive.  Both are entirely
        correct if taken as isolated statements, but also incorrect in the
        context Goldberg puts them to use.
          The presence of bias in inquiry is, of course, logically
        independent of whether the conclusions reached are well-supported or
        not.  One cannot say "bias exists, *therefore* the conclusions are in
        error," without committing a fallacy.  Does this mean that questions
        about bias are wholly peripheral in evaluating claims?  Studies need
        not cancel each other out, as Goldberg properly points out, they *may*
        be different enough that one form of experiment captures the phenomena
        in question while another may not be adequate to the task.  It is
        illegitimate to say that "contradictory studies exist, *therefore*
        there is no evidence for the theory in question."  How than shall we
        evaluate incompatible claims?
               The presence of bias, contrary to Goldberg's implications, can
        be be an important bit of information in evaluating claims, in the
        presence of incomplete information.  The familiar example of psychical
        research/parapsychology will serve us well: a history of both bias and
        scientific incompetence is fairly well documented.  If "The Skeptics
        Handbook of Parapsychology" is referred to (ed. Paul Kurtz), plenty of
        information can be gleaned about the spiritualistic and quasireligious
        bias that still motivates much of the research.  The relevance of this
        is in that it partially provides an explanation for the domination of
        parapsychological inquiry by scientifically inadequate work, from
        sloppiness to misinterpretation to outright fraud.  It is not so much
        of a question of the occasional screw-up getting through, but a bias
        that has historically been pervasively influential in determining the
        structures of the institutions of psychical research.
             In a world of perfect information, bias would indeed be a
        peripheral question, and we would have the resources to evaluate each
        experimental claim for psi on its own terms, addressing the presence
        of "error" independently of institutional information.  But we are
        *very* far from such an ideal state, and thus whether bias is present
        or not will have an effect on our trust in the institutions, and will
        affect (not necessarily very strongly in all cases) our evaluations of
        the probabilities of claims.
                The history of "scientific" research about biological and
        psychological differences between men and women exhibits a very strong
        ideologically determined bias; and parts of the history of
        gender-related science would give the history of parapsychology a run
        for its money in fraudulence and general weirdness (I actually suspect
        it comes out ahead, but I won't push the issue).  This is not even a
        19th century historical oddity, but comes right up to the present
        (remember sociobiology?), and there are excellent reasons to suspect
        its persistence.  At the risk of sounding like a presidential
        candidate, there is an issue of trust here: if significant
        institutional bias that has manifested itself in systematic "errors"
        exists, we should be wary of the latest high-tech sophisticated
        results that confirm the same old theories.  I believe I am entirely
        justified in requiring parapsychology as an institution to clean up
        its act before I take them seriously, no matter what kind of fancy
        statistical analysis is presented.  Similarly, psychology and biology
        have yet to convince me that they are competent to explore
        gender-related questions without being inadvertent servants to
        ideology, "patriarchal" or "feminist" or whatever (no lack of fools
        that would substitute one bias for another, but Tavris does not argue
        for such a development).
           The issue of studies cancelling each other out is closely
        related.  Psychical researchers have a zillion experimental designs to
        explore the action of otherworldly forces, from seances to mechanized
        PK experiments.  Yet somehow skeptics still insist that (i) negative
        results be publicized and given due weight, and (ii) totally negative
        results on certain simple experiments that might be expected to be
        decisively test some theoretical conceptions be of importance.  In
        conventional physics, especially when a field is just opening up, it
        is quite common to have a number of contradictory experiments out in
        the field, with the effect that no theory is seen as having a decisive
        advantage -- in fact, it is not unusual for a complex interaction of
        theory and experiment to drive progression to a more solid
        understanding after such a period of uncertainty (it is in fact
        difficult to determine "error" before an understanding is within
        reach).
             In a similar fashion, the presence of work that would seem to
        minimize differences among male and female brain structure and
        function does count against theories (and experiments, the separation
        is not that sharp) that support a more pronounced sexual dimorphism.
        "Cancelling out" may be a bad description, but empirical uncertainty
        does seriously affect the status of theories.  It is entirely
        legitimate to cast doubt over certain claims by pointing out negative
        results.
              There are no lack of circumstances where our intuition leads
        us astray, owing to unusual circumstances.  But it must also be noted
        that our "intuition," imperfect as it is, is usually a good enough
        tool.  I would contend that it is best to be skeptical regarding the
        self-appointed logic police, when they try to tell you that a form of
        real-world reasoning that is employed by many happens to fit a certain
        form of textbook "logical fallacy."  Usually the story is much more
        complex than that of a simple defect in human wiring.
              Goldberg, with a writing style that comes across as pompous
        arrogance that he is in possession of the flaming sword of pure logic
        to cut through ideological webs of obstructions to clear thought, all
        too often exhibits the nastier side of skepticism.  It would be easier
        to forgive if he displayed more of an appreciation of complexity, and
        a better understanding of probabilistic inference under conditions of
        incomplete information.
        
            Taner Edis
        
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        >>>>>>Steven Goldberg (Dept. of Sociology, CUNY) replies:
        
        Taner  Edis' note raises the interesting issue of one's  response 
        to  material  one doesn't like when one can't find  any  specific 
        error of logic, fact, or selection in the material.
        
        I  agree in principle, and I suspect in practice, with  virtually 
        all that Mr. Edis writes that is substantive and relevant to  the 
        specific empirical issues raised on Usenet. Indeed, he summarizes 
        all that is substantive and relevant in less than a sentence:
        
             The   presence  of  bias...can  be  an  important   bit   of 
             information  in  evaluating  claims,  in  the  presence   of 
             *incomplete information*. (Emphasis added)
        
        While there is no reason that anyone involved only in the  Usenet 
        discussion  should know it, most of my work concerns the  *logic* 
        of  arguments.  While  *Patriarchy*  contains  a  great  deal  of 
        empirical  evidence, much of my other work concerns questions  of 
        logic almost entirely. For example, my piece on the death penalty 
        [in  "When  Wish  Replaces Thought": RS]  accepts  the  empirical 
        claims of those who have concluded that the death penalty doesn't 
        deter  and  attempts to show that the conclusion  doesn't  follow 
        from  the evidence. (The death penalty may or may not deter,  but 
        the argument claiming to demonstrate that this is the case  fails 
        to do so.) In the context of my work, whenever an argument  fails 
        on  logical  grounds,  it doesn't matter  whether  the  empirical 
        evidence  is  biased; an argument that fails on  logical  grounds 
        doesn't even get up to bat empirically. And it was with reference 
        to  this  context  that I made the  points  Mr.  Edis  addresses. 
        Clearly,  there are many other venues in which valid  observation 
        might not be invalidated by poor logic (e.g.,accurate observation 
        poorly explained.)
        
        Likewise  (to address Mr. Edis' example), if an argument made  by 
        the American Tobacco Institute fails on logical grounds, we  need 
        not  consider  the empirical claims. If the argument  passes  the 
        logical test, *then*, *of course*, we remain skeptical about  the 
        empirical   claims   and   have  them   immediately   tested   by 
        disinterested  observers.  (Incidentally, I did not say,  as  Mr. 
        Edis implies, that a positive finding tends to be *confirmed*  by 
        a  null  finding based on a different methodology, but  that  the 
        null finding does nothing to cast doubt on the positive  finding. 
        If the methodology leading to a positive finding is flawed, then, 
        of course, we refuse to accept the finding. But we do so  because 
        the  methodology was flawed (in this case by observer bias),  not 
        on  the basis of any irrelevant null finding of a study  using  a 
        completely different methodology.)
        
        In  the  context  of all the material *not* possible  to  put  on 
        Usenet  (including much of *Patriarchy*) it is, I  hope,  obvious 
        that,  *if  we  are  speaking of those  who  make  the  empirical 
        observations*,   we   should  be  unwilling   to   accept   their 
        observational  claims-at least to the extent that we  assess  the 
        bias  as  likely to bias the observations. We  should  doubt  the 
        observation  and rush to see whether unbiased observers  see  the 
        same  thing. Indeed, we should do this no matter who the  initial 
        observers were.
        
        But none of this is relevant to *Patriarchy* and its evidence for 
        universality.  If the observational claims of  *Patriarchy*  were 
        based on *my* observations (i.e., if I were the ethnographer  who 
        lived  with  and observed each society)  or those of  some  small 
        group of anthropologists, then, of course, it would be proper  to 
        raise  the  question  of observer; I would raise  it  myself,  no 
        matter how close to certain I were of my objectivity. This is the 
        least one should ask of anyone making any scientific claim.
        
        But  this  is not the case (to say the least: I tend to  see  any 
        place where one can not order up Chinese food and get  tomorrow's 
        newspaper  tonight as being forced to negotiate another  galaxy). 
        And if I have correctly represented the evidence of thousands  of 
        others with all sorts of differing psychological, scientific, and 
        political tendencies, then the likelihood of the sort of bias Mr. 
        Edis fears becomes of vanishing importance. If I have *failed* to 
        report  the  findings  accurately, then this should  be  easy  to 
        demonstrate;   all  the  evidence  is  available  and  only   one 
        counterexample  is required. (Mr. Edis' point about bias  *would* 
        be relevant to a claim of a single non-patriarchal society; if  a 
        feminist  anthropologist  came back from  studying  an  otherwise 
        unstudied  group  and declared it non-patriarchal,  we  would  be 
        right  to  be dubious and would  immediately  send  disinterested 
        researchers to check the feminist's observations. We would do the 
        same  thing  if  a single person  reported  *anything*  that  the 
        evidence of all other societies made seem unlikely. )
        
        In  short:  Mr. Edis' note gives no logical or factual  point  on 
        which  we  disagree  (though  I  understand  that  the  truncated 
        reference to the peripheral issue of bias in general does justify 
        Mr. Edis' points about observational bias.)
        
        But what seems to bother Mr. Edis more are issues of the tone  of 
        the paragraphs of mine run on Usenet and the plausibility, value, 
        and originality of *Patriarchy* (or at least that portion run  on 
        Usenet).
        
        Such  issues are not fertilely debated; they are more matters  of 
        taste. But a few points may be worth making.
        
        I  may have, on a few occasions, criticized some  statement  more 
        acerbicly  than the statement deserved. I don't know that I  have 
        done this, but, when one is forced over so many years to  respond 
        to  so many arguments so devoid of both cogency and  intellectual 
        honesty,  one  does  get a *tad* annoyed  and  annoyance  is  not 
        inevitably aimed at a deserving target.
        
        But I suspect that the sort of thing that Mr. Edis has in mind is 
        my using absurd examples to demonstrate the illogic of a line  of 
        reasoning.  My  purpose  here was not to  be  "snide",  and  most 
        disinterested  readers did not take the tone to be  "snide".   My 
        purpose  was  to  demonstrate as concisely  and  persuasively  as 
        possible the futility of the line of reasoning.
        
        For  example: I write that "explanation" of the  universality  of 
        patriarchy that gives causal primacy to the socialization of boys 
        and  girls is equivalent to the explanation that claims that  men 
        can  grow moustaches *because* little girls are told that  facial 
        hair is unfeminine. I make the point this way because  experience 
        has taught me that reduction to absurdity is the most  persuasive 
        and  long-lasting  vaccine  against repetition  of  fallacy.  But 
        twenty  years of doing this sort of thing has made it clear  that 
        those  who don't again commit the fallacy refrain from  doing  so 
        because they remember the moustache long after they've  forgotten 
        the  direct articulation of the point. (I always also  make  such 
        points  without invoking analogy: i.e., the explanation in  terms 
        of  socialization fails to ask the central question of why  every 
        society's   socialization  associates  dominance  behavior   with 
        males).
        
        If none of this alters Mr. Edis' feeling that the tone is  snide, 
        there  is nothing I can do to change his mind. And, in any  case, 
        the  issue worth anyone's attention is not the tone - whatever  a 
        particular  reader might feel it to be - but the  correctness  of 
        what I write.
        
        But  it is worth noting that, even if my tone were what Mr.  Edis 
        believes,  this  tone was reserved  for  demonstrably  fallacious 
        arguments and tendentiously reported evidence.
        
        Mr. Edis, on the other hand, does not even question any  specific 
        logical  or empirical claim I make.Instead he invokes  the  usual 
        truisms about the probabilistic nature of incomplete information, 
        past  unjustified conclusions, generalities about the dangers  of 
        ideology   and  the  like  and  refers  to  my  alleged   "rather 
        superficial  application  of logic" and  "understanding  of  some 
        basic  statistical reasoning". Talk about snide. Sophomoric,  but 
        snide nonetheless.
        
        And  it  is  a snideness that is not backed up  by  any  specific 
        example  of fallacy or error on my part. It is  simply  snideness 
        for  its own sake. (Since Mr. Edis grants - or at least fails  to 
        question  -  the logic and statistical reasoning  I  invoke,  one 
        wonders  what  alternative he sees to the logic  and  statistical 
        reasoning  I  invoke - unnecessary  logic  chopping?  unnecessary 
        statistical manipulation? One should introduce the minimal number 
        of technical tools necessary. Anything more is just showing off)
        
        Now, perhaps something approaching Mr. Edis' tone is justified if 
        *Patriarchy*  -  even  if correct - is obvious.  But  two  points 
        should be kept in mind here:
        
        1.  It is in the nature of analyses that emphasize the  logic  of 
        arguments  that they always seem obvious *after* they expose  the 
        fallacies they expose. I can not count the number of  researchers 
        who overtime have said, in effect:
        
             You're wrong, you're wrong.
             Oh...Well, we knew it all along.
        
        In other words, many committed time and again the fallacies whose 
        fallaciousness - once exposed - they found to be "obvious". And I 
        include here not merely the incompetent, but at least a couple of 
        Nobel  Prize candidates (whose good work is, needless-to-say,  in 
        other  areas).  These  people raised many  specific  logical  and 
        factual  points (usually without much knowledge of  the  relevant 
        evidence); when they were forced to acknowledge that these points 
        were   incorrect,  they  then  claimed  that  my   argument   was 
        "obvious"and  raised peripheral or irrelevant issues  (e.g.,  the 
        trustworthiness of biological evidence *in general* and the other 
        arguments  to  which  one  is  reduced  when  one  finds  nothing 
        incorrect  in an analysis.) There is something about the  subject 
        of sex differences that turns some otherwise fine minds to  mush. 
        Mr.  Edis  has,  to this point, immunized  himself  against  this 
        charge by refraining from doing any work in this area.
        
        Any  assessment of issues such as plausibility, originality,  and 
        the scientific value of work with which one can not find  fallacy 
        or  error  is  vulnerable  to  distortion  by  strong   political 
        feelings. This is why such questions are ultimately to be decided 
        by  the disinterested, not by the theorist or the observer  whose 
        assessments of plausibility and scientific *value* are biased  by 
        political  conviction and fear of (what he imagines will be)  the 
        social effects of knowledge of the truth.
        
        Mr. Edis clearly has-and virtually acknowledges that he  has-such 
        political  feelings.  While  Mr. Edis and  I  can  still  discuss 
        disagreements  of  logic  and  fact, we  must  leave  it  to  the 
        disinterested to decide issues of plausibility, scientific value, 
        originality, and other issues not amenable to settlement by logic 
        and fact alone.
        
        This  does  not mean that one's assessments can not  change  over 
        time.  Mr. Edis is, I assume, in another discipline  and  doesn't 
        know much about the available evidence on the issues we  discuss. 
        This unfamiliarity leads him to view the evidence in an  entirely 
        unrealistic way.
        
        For example: we have studied societies that are as "Stone Age" as 
        any  that we have any reason to believe have ever existed.  While 
        one  unfamiliar with the ethnographic evidence might  understand-
        ably  think in terms of a social evolution that has affected  all 
        societies, no anthropologist any longer takes seriously this sort 
        of  linear  social  evolutionary theory and there  is  no  reason 
        whatever  to  believe any society ever existed  that  lacked  the 
        institutions   discussed.   The   only   "evidence"   for    such 
        "exceptional"  societies  is  unsupported  claims  by  those  who 
        finally stopped pretending that among the thousands of  societies 
        on  which  we  *do*  have  any real  evidence  one  can  find  an 
        exception.  Now they invoke myths as evidence, an  approach  that 
        would justify a belief in cyclopes.
        
        Since one can not demonstrate the non-existence of a non-existent 
        reality, the issue becomes one of plausibility. The fact that  we 
        have  no observational reason to believe that there are  unicorns 
        does not demonstrate that there could not be one behind the  next 
        tree. But I suspect that familiarity with the tremendous range of 
        human  diversity  that  one does find as  one  studies  different 
        societies  would  lead Mr.Edis to find  increasingly  implausible 
        claims that there has ever been a society lacking a reality found 
        in  every  one  of the diverse societies on  which  we  have  any 
        evidence  at  all. (And this would be true even before  Mr.  Edis 
        looked  at  the voluminous evidence on the  role  of  male-female 
        neuroendocrinological  differences  in differentiating  male  and 
        female behavior.) Is it coincidence that the more we know about a 
        society  the more we know it's not an exception. Indeed,  no  one 
        any  longer argues that any society on we have any  observational 
        evidence  is an exception. The alleged exceptions now  come  from 
        "theories" built on a shard found in a grave site, the equivalent 
        of  concluding that the United States is a matriarchy because  it 
        celebrates Mother's Day.
        
        If  the  time comes when serious archaeologists take even  a  bit 
        seriously the claim that a specific ruin suggests that one of the 
        institutions  and behaviors we discuss was absent, I'll be  there 
        to  see whether it's an exception. (Even most of those  who  have 
        been  willing  to make the wildest speculations  usually  do  not 
        claim  an  exception.  They may, for  example,  claim  that  some 
        society had a female as its most powerful god. This is  certainly 
        an  interesting  question, but one that, even if  correct,  would 
        indicate  only that the gender of the god has little to  do  with 
        the   authority  system.  This  is  easy  to  imagine  for   some 
        agricultural   society,  with  its  constant  awareness  of   the 
        tentative  nature  of  fertility and survival. For  all  I  know, 
        archaeologists already know of many of these.)
        
        Similarly, the idea that a male bias explains why no ethnographer 
        has  reported a society with hierarchies not dominated  by  males 
        can  be  held only by one unfamiliar with the  realities  of  the 
        disciplines  involved.  After  all, we're  not  talking  anything 
        subtle  here:  we're  talking hierarchies not filled  by  men,  a 
        pretty  easy thing to spot. An ethnographer is as likely to  fail 
        to  report this as to fail to report that the people studied  had 
        two heads.
        
        Moreover,  Mr.  Edis  ignores  the  fact  that  for  decades  the 
        prevailing  model  in the social sciences has been  that  of  the 
        environmentalist  and  that any  young  anthropologist  plausibly 
        arguing  that there ever existed a society failing  to  associate 
        authority  with  males  would have his or her  career  made.  The 
        problem  is not writers who suppress knowledge  of  universality, 
        but writers who claim - until challenged - that there has been an 
        exception.
        
        Finally: The ultimate question of plausibility is that concerning 
        the  likelihood of social factors acting as counterpoise  to  the 
        psychophysiological  factors. If one ignores that fact  that  the 
        social is primarily a dependent variable given its limits by  the 
        population's observation of male-female behavioral differences  - 
        that  are rooted in differences in male-female physiologies,  one 
        can  always  claim  that  the  social  will  someday  negate  the 
        importance  of  the psychophysiological. But I suspect  that  Mr. 
        Edis  would,  if  he studied the  anthropological  evidence,  the 
        extensive  evidence on the role of neuroendocrinological  factors 
        in differentiating male and female behavior, and the evidence  of 
        all  human  experience, conclude that the likelihood  of  a  non-
        patriarchal society - especially a non-patriarchal modern society 
        - is infinitesimal. He would increasingly conclude that societies 
        are   given  limits  and  directions  by  the  reality   of   the 
        physiologies of the males and females of whom society is created. 
        He would no more expect the development of a society negating the 
        importance of male dominance behavior than he would a society  in 
        which  all  but  a  few men  necessary  for  procreative  reasons 
        remained  celibate.  Indeed, it would not even occur  to  him  to 
        imagine  such a society because *that* would not be a society  he 
        yearned  for.  But,  at the basic  psychophysiological  level  we 
        discuss, our idiosyncratic wishes are irrelevant. We are what  we 
        are, and - even when we *all* pretend that we are not what we are 
        -  our  behavior and the institutions relevant to  that  behavior 
        reflect this reality. 
        
        *NOTE*:  For  a year now, I have been reading  Robert  Sheaffer's 
        discussions of *Patriarchy*, mumbling, "right", "right", "OK"  as 
        I  read through his paragraphs. It should have long ago  occurred 
        to  me  how  astonishing this is. Even  friendly  reviewers  have 
        invariably   tended  to  misinterpret  various   subtleties   and 
        technicalities.  No  doubt much of the fault is  mine.  Moreover, 
        theoretical   distinctions   (e.g.,   "patriarchy"   refers    to 
        hierarchies,  "male dominance" to male-female  relationships  and 
        encounters) that are important in other contexts often serve only 
        to  complicate  matters  for  one  whose  interest  need  not  be 
        concerned with the distinctions.
        
        With all such impediments, Robert Sheaffer has done a  remarkable 
        job  in  accurately and acutely responding to  Usenet  criticisms 
        with  the  appropriate  responses.  A  colleague  of  such  great 
        competence  is more than fair exchange for the  infinitely  more-
        common misrepresentation of my work.
        
                                      Steven Goldberg

-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!


     "Mystical explanations are considered deep. The truth is that
      they are not even superficial."

                   - Friedrich Nietzsche    (The Gay Science: 126)