As Dawkins puts it, although scientists studying sociobiology are liable to disagree on minutiae, sociobiology is "no more controversial, in itself, than metallurgy or ornithology". If it's not to obvious, the tremendous conceptual hurdle and thus controversy around sociobiology has not been the factual or theoretical nature of the field in general, but the apparently difficult enterprise of fitting it to standard progressive politics.
A good, healthy modern Leftist is supposed
to assume that society and its members are material for molding. The
goal of progressive politics has been to peel away the irrational,
bigoted or arbitrary elements of traditional culture, with the promise
of a pristine and malleable mankind left in the wake of all the peeling.
Sociobiology can compromise this picture in that biological research
can often (or usually) show that the unfortunate tendencies of human
cultures are not just cultural quirks, but based in the nature of the
human mind as a product of natural selection.
The problem isn't so much that sociobiology and other studies of humankind have been particularly politically incorrect in their findings, but that any kind of understanding of human behavior on an innate level, be that sociobiology, neuroscience, psychology or even some kinds of Game Theoretic analysis chips away at the 'desirable' idea that the human mind is a completely blank slate. Thus if sociobiology explains the limitations and biases of human beings to any degree, it constitutes an affront to 'progress' as it limits the extent to which a progressive social engineer can bend society. Sociobiology is thus a sensitive subject for the proponents of rigid social constructivism as unless it remains totally unsubstantiated and without any kind of predictions or data, it is an essential affront to their program.
By extension,
we can view sociobiology as a thorn in the side of Enlightenment
philosophy in general (or to optimists, a clarifying complication). The
impetus of the Enlightenment had been for big, smart men to understand the
workings of society by rational means. A man of letters might deduce, for example,
that men and women, although historically compartmentalized differently,
are equal in terms of morals and intelligence. From this he might say
that the fact that men participate more in politics and governing is a
kind of chauvinism or bias that should be eliminated. But modern biological and Game Theoretic analyses of gender can jeopardize this interpretation in that they can localize systematic differences in the way men and women approach and want to approach their lives such that perfect gender 'equality' in social life may become either meaningless or undesirable.
This ends up being a
token in the favor of Burkean conservativism (or Hayekian liberalism); that is to say, the idea
that although we can often understand society rationally, some seemingly
arbitrary social institutions (monogamy, religion, virginity, etc.) may
in fact have some kind of important social purpose with a biological or
cultural origin based on the long-run success of society. Although we
can still look at these rationally, Burke notes that someone at a
certain moment of time may overlook their social benefits and might
prematurely call for their eradication.
Acknowledging this can shake up the entire way that anthropologists and sociologists look at human society. For example, a cursory glace at cultural typology will show that effectively all human societies are 'patriarchal' (there are some that are matrilineal, although basically none in which women are the politicians and warriors). A loyal social constructionist should be somewhat troubled; if sex/gender is a mere social construction, the fact that males 'rule' effectively all human cultures should come off as some kind of tremendous coincidence. If the gender rulership of a culture is neutral to its survivability (or the desires of its members), shouldn't around half human cultures be property matriarchal?
But a scientist steeped in sociobiology (or a critical layman) might see the same data and approach it differently: "If all human cultures are patriarchal, wouldn't that seem to say that either humans tend to naturally organize with men as political agents or that male-dominated societies are socially maintainable longer?" A tentative 'yes' answer to either of these questions would be unappealing to consensus culture, but these questions do not only seem to be plausible hypotheses, but also open the door to actual analysis.
Social
constructionism, on the other hand, is not a research program; it's a preconceived solution
to a large set of social epiphenomena. Social constructivists assume a priori that the large palette of human cultural affinities are purely arbitrary or random, and could, without effect be shifted and molded in any permutation.
Politically speaking, constructionists will not be
happy until it can weed out every single analytical or properly
scientific view of human behavior and attribute it all to a magical
Geist or common spirit (or the modern equivalent: 'Privilege'). These
are not simply contentless words, but are purposefully emotionalized
placeholders for a set of unknown mechanisms which radical scholars
don't know about and don't want to know about, because knowledge would breed explanation, and explanation (they think) would breed justification
(and to a circumstantial degree, they are precisely right). So long as
ignorance is present in the public's understanding of sociology, they
can remain in repute.
Of course we should go ahead and nip in the bud the idea that somehow acknowledging differences between men and women or even aggregate tendencies in 'racial' differences or human predispositions to violence and xenophobia sentence us to devising some kind of pre-modern society with all the animalisms of the past enshrined in law. This is what constructionists want to believe, because it creates what would be considered a moral impossibility for accepting sociobiology in polite culture. But to impute a statement like this to any person studying sociobiology would be an obvious straw-man argument.
Instead, understanding the limits and the basic way of thinking of human beings is fundamental to any generalization about them or harebrained scheme to change or manipulate their social interactions. Understanding the innateness of humans is still a negative restraint on social engineering: we can not look at the differences in, say, male and female in the employment world as being merely the function of some general sociological preference for one over the other, assuming both men and women have identical preferences. Instead, psychological research shows us that men and women differ fundamentally on preferences, in their innate and cross-cultural desire for work, the hours they're willing to work, their general risk aversion, their desired socialness of the work environment along with many other factors.
The famous Gender Equality Paradox (that more socially egalitarian and affluent societies have greater
gender disparities in work than developing economies) is simply a
reflection of the fact that people (here specifically women) if given
the freedom and means to choose their desired career path choose work
that matches their personal desires, and not merely how much an
occupation pays.
Thus to shove men or women into the same
working categories is not necessarily (in fact probably not) an
aesthetic improvement in society; much of the differences are merely
functions of systematically different individual desires. Trying to
force their desires to match the 'progressive' standard of 50/50
equality necessitates bulldozing over what people actually want to do with their lives.
Mostly importantly, an understanding of human psychology lets us know
that differences in outcomes cannot simply be attributed to amorphous
sociological Geists, but are usually just functions of different desires
and aptitudes. Society is an iterated game.
If we are to succeed in scientifically analyzing any social phenomenon, including the pervasiveness of gender differences, we must realize that our success would be an explanation of a human societies which would necessarily be misinterpreted as a justification by social radicals. This is generally true of any explanation rooted in humankind itself; the only recourse for a politically correct solution to sociological problems would be models unrelated to the tendencies and nature of humans (for example, Diamond's geographical hypothesis of technological advancement). Otherwise, understanding human biology as a source of any individual or group behavior necessarily sheds light on the origins of the social outcomes that social radicals dislike, and thus runs contrary to their program.
The optimal
political solution for the "science for 'the people'" crowd (as opposed
to "science for science/reality") can easily be seen realized
in universities and periodicals across the the Western world:
sociobiological research, although not censored, is treated with
contempt and scorn, and scientists who offend popular sentiments with
the "unfortunate" results of their work can expect to be pummeled with
the normal litany of appellations: reactionary, sexist, racist, xenophobic, reductionist, homophobic, etc., etc.
The
irony is still that of the main names behind sociobiology, all of them
are categorical Leftists without exception. EO Wilson, JM Smith, Richard
Dawkins and the like have not shown any inklings of social heresy
(besides perhaps Dawkin's occasional mockery of "first world" feminism,
although much of this is a rejoinder to angst felt against his original
sociobiological work). Academia is always in a constant purge of ideas
that it might consider rudimentarily non-Leftist and as such, there has
never been any kind of politically Right academic program pretexted on
sociobiology.
My fingers are not on the pulse of today's hard sciences' graduate students, but social radicalism is playing a dangerous game in shunning sociobiology. If academic Leftism serves as a sufficient obstacle or unjustified critic of sociobiological research, which is constantly pushing the envelope, there always is the chance of young scientists abandoning any respect for their 'social science' dilettante agitators. Frankly, sociobiologists have been mild in tip-toeing around progressive morals and assuring the public that their research can be fit in line with popular politics; it would thus be politically disastrous for the social radicals if they were to throw of this politeness.