“BEST” to Whom? or The Affirmative Side: Legitimating stasis on the threshold between the Two Cultures?

While discussing the kind of biological determinism for which Steven Pinker will later become the poster boy, Richard Lewontin highlights this use of science as a tool with which society legitimates the othering of its deviants: “The demand of women for equality is unwarranted because male domination has been built into our genes by generations of evolution [and so on].” While it seems that the two theorists’ words might at any second be ready to jump off the page and go at it, they are written from different perspectives: given the publication year of their respective articles, they are only somewhat suited for battle on the same grounds; not that Lewontin’s breakdown of the reductionist nature of bio-determinism cannot be applied to Pinker’s devaluation of any need for such a breakdown (or for cultural studies as a whole), but I for one would be interested to see an updated version, or a direct debate between the two. But that’s just my problem: I don’t think that these sides are ready to talk to one another on the same terms, using a common language.
During the recent class debate, the affirmative argument was favored by a slight majority, and it seemed that this was owed in part to the point that people attempting or desiring amputation would be denied health care if their desire was not recognized as a disorder. While I see the practicality that this conclusion seems to evoke given the financial constructs of our present reality, I have a hard time accepting that the issue ends there. Is there any doubt that the speakers for the opposing side – who were extremely well-spoken in their own politics of representation – wouldn’t desire the same financial equity for the group of people in question, even if ‘only’ from a moral standpoint?
My long-winded point), is that if the “victorious” side on the debate is such because it is rooted in language defined by science, which it has to be in order to support the scientifically-defined “disorder,” and that this language legitimizes the concern with financial well-being trumping a moral problem with the stigma of labeling, then the affirmative conclusion is inextricably tied to the financial constructs already in place. This means assuming that the way to “best” describe or explain anything corresponds with being able to classify it using pre-established methods. On the other hand, I saw the opposing argument speaking a language which attempts to deconstruct the terms on which “best” is defined, thereby seeking dissociation with the necessarily-tied relationship of classification and the flow of capital.
This suggests to me that the two sides cannot be treated as two distinct sides and directly address one another… I don’t think that we did.
Can it be that Lewontin’s prediction - that bio-determinism will continue to produce and reproduce itself, in order to combat the intellectual arguments against it; and that its proliferation will therefore perpetuate whatever forms of domination it tries to legitimize - is more accurate than we would like to admit, and showed up in our classroom?


* Why won't this let me post? Something about HTML not being accepted- that is a language I do not speak.... ughh.

I think this is in need of a re-articulation at some point.