Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations

Abstract

The basic argument of Fox's article is that prejudice is an inevitable consequence of natural selection. The article is interesting to read, covers a tremendous amount of territory in sociobiology, social cognition, and Star Trek lore, and raises some of the fundamental issues at the core of intergroup perceptions. Unfortunately, this effort has fallen prey to the central difficulty of serious interdisciplinary work: In order to make a scholarly contribution across disciplines, one is compelled to become expert in (at least) those domains of each discipline that one is trying to integrate and extend. Otherwise, one runs the risk, gambled and lost in Fox's article, of specious misuse of the concepts, principles, and data taken out of context from each discipline. The armchair sociobiology conveyed in his article has all the standard flaws of armchair sociobiology. Moreover, the depiction of social psychology is overly simplified and not entirely consistent with current theory and research on intergroup perceptions. Last, the misrepresented characters and events in Star Trek might in fact be used to illustrate an entirely different view of prejudice. We try to highlight some important elements of the sociobiological and social-psychological components of Fox's arguments. As Fox did, we use examples from Star Trek to illustrate a few basic points. 1