Here is the next paragraph in Dobbs criticism of Wade:
"Wade builds much of his case around historical ideas like Gregory
Clark’s hypothesis about English breeding; the political scientist
Francis Fukuyama’s notion that Western democracies represent a high
point in the evolution of social institutions; and the economic
historian Niall Ferguson’s view that the West “succeeded because it was
an open society.” These values and institutions, Wade says, were both
shaped by and drove the evolution of Caucasian genes."
Here is what Wade actually writes: ". . . each race has developed the
institutions appropriate to secure survival in its particular
environment. This, then, is the most significant feature of human
races: not that their members differ much as individuals -- they don't
-- but that their society's institutions differ because of slight
differences in social behavior.
"A landmark analysis of human history in terms of social institutions
has recently been written by the political scientist Francis Fukuyama.
Fukuyama has nothing to say about race but his thesis, describing how
each of the major civilizations adapted its institutions to its local
geography and historical circumstances, provides a road map of human
social adaptation and the different paths taken by each civilization.
"Fukuyama's premise, like that of North quoted above, is that
institutions are rooted in human social behavior. 'The recovery of
human nature by modern biology . . . is extremely important as a
foundation for any theory of political development, because it provides
us with the basic building blocks by which we can understand the later
evolution of human institutions,' he writes."
Wade's discussion of Fukuyama's applicable ideas seem logical and benign
to me. Fukuyama's ideas as quoted are consistent with ideas of natural
selection. I don't read Wade as "conjecturing" so much as drawing
attention to a parallel between social and physical science. I have
encountered other writers doing this sort of thing, Bryan Sykes for
example in /The Seven Daughters of Eve, /subtitled "The Science that
Reveals our Genetic Ancestry," who makes use of anthropology, history
and archaeology.
I've watched National Geographic-type documentaries where someone is
showing life evolving, shaped by its environment. It seems a bit
excessive to criticize Wade for doing something similar.
Lawrence