Shorter Jerry Coyne: Chris Mooney, evolution, and politics:
We haven’t got free will, except when it comes to politics.
Like Coyne, I’ve yet to read Chris Mooney’s book, and like Coyne, I’m not up on the latest research on the determinants of political and ideological orientation. Unlike Coyne, I’m not going to make grand declarations about what the science does or doesn’t say. But it’s not immediately obvious that genetics wouldn’t play a role in political orientation (especially via the risk-averse:conservative::novelty-seeking:liberal mechanism Mooney lays out), so it isn’t clear why Coyne should feel obliged to savage Mooney’s book without having read it.
This is doubly so since Coyne has devoted himself wholeheartedly to the proposition that free will doesn’t exist. I’d think he’d feel validated by the discovery that political ideology is at least partly controlled by the deterministic forces of genetics. I guess the laws of the universe force Coyne to prioritize hating Chris Mooney over opposing free will.