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Evolutionary Theory And Human Nature
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Book Synopsis Evolutionary Theory and Human Nature by : Ron Vannelli
Download or read book Evolutionary Theory and Human Nature written by Ron Vannelli and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolutionary Theory and Human Nature is an original, highly theoretical work dealing with the transition from genes to behavior using general principles of evolution, especially those of sexual selection. It seeks to develop a seamless transition from genes to human motivations as bio-electric brain processes (emotional-cognitive processes), to human nature propensities (various constellations of emotional-cognitive forces, desires and fears) to species typical patterns of behavior. This work covers two often antagonistic fields: biology and the social sciences. It should be of strong interest to anthropologists, sociologists, sociobiologists, psychobiologists and psychologists who are interested in the question of human nature influences on social behavior.
Book Synopsis Beyond Evolution by : Anthony O'Hear
Download or read book Beyond Evolution written by Anthony O'Hear and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 1997-10-09 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthony O'Hear takes a stand against the fashion for explaining human behaviour in terms of evolution. He maintains, controversially, that while the theory of evolution is successful in explaining the development of the natural world in general, it is of limited value when applied to the human world. Because of our reflectiveness and our rationality we take on goals and ideals which cannot be justified in terms of survival-promotion or reproductive advantage. O'Hear examines the nature of human self-consciousness, and argues that evolutionary theory cannot give a satisfactory account of such distinctive facets of human life as the quest for knowledge, moral sense, and the appreciation of beauty; in these we transcend our biological origins. It is our rationality that allows each of us to go beyond not only our biological but also our cultural inheritance: as the author says in the Preface, 'we are prisoners neither of our genes nor of the ideas we encounter as we each make our personal and individual way through life'.
Book Synopsis Toward a Biosocial Science by : Alexander Riley
Download or read book Toward a Biosocial Science written by Alexander Riley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-03 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sociology is in crisis. While other disciplines have taken on board the revolutionary discoveries driven by evolutionary biology and psychology, genomics and behavioral genetics, and the neurosciences, sociology has ignored these advances and embraced a biophobia that threatens to drive the discipline into marginality. This book takes its place in a rich tradition of efforts to integrate sociological thinking into the world of the biological sciences that can be traced to the origins of the discipline, and that took on modern form beginning a generation ago in the works of thinkers such as E.O. Wilson, Richard Alexander, Joseph Lopreato, and Richard Machalek. It offers an accessible introduction to rethinking sociological science in consonance with these contemporary biological revolutions. From the standpoint of a biosociology rooted in the single most important scientific theory touching on human life, the Darwinian theory of natural selection, the book sketches an evolutionary social science that would enable us to properly attend to basic questions of human nature, human behavior, and human social organization. Individual chapters take on such topics as: The roots and nature of human sociality; the origins of morality in human social life and an evolutionary perspective on human interests, reciprocity, and altruism; the sex difference in our species and what it contributes to an explanation of sociological facts; the nature of stratification, status, and inequality in human evolutionary history; the question of race in our species; and the contribution evolutionary theory makes to explaining the origins and the importance of culture in human societies.
Book Synopsis Biology, Evolution, and Human Nature by : Timothy H. Goldsmith
Download or read book Biology, Evolution, and Human Nature written by Timothy H. Goldsmith and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2000-11-16 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uses evolution as the unifying theme to trace the connections between levels of biological complexity from genes through nervous systems, animal societies, and human cultures. It examines the history of evolutionary theory from Darwin to the present, including: the impact of molecular biology and the emergence of evolutionary social theory.
Download or read book Adapting Minds written by David J. Buller and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2006-02-17 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Was human nature designed by natural selection in the Pleistocene epoch? The dominant view in evolutionary psychology holds that it was—that our psychological adaptations were designed tens of thousands of years ago to solve problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. In this provocative and lively book, David Buller examines in detail the major claims of evolutionary psychology—the paradigm popularized by Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate and by David Buss in The Evolution of Desire—and rejects them all. This does not mean that we cannot apply evolutionary theory to human psychology, says Buller, but that the conventional wisdom in evolutionary psychology is misguided. Evolutionary psychology employs a kind of reverse engineering to explain the evolved design of the mind, figuring out the adaptive problems our ancestors faced and then inferring the psychological adaptations that evolved to solve them. In the carefully argued central chapters of Adapting Minds, Buller scrutinizes several of evolutionary psychology's most highly publicized "discoveries," including "discriminative parental solicitude" (the idea that stepparents abuse their stepchildren at a higher rate than genetic parents abuse their biological children). Drawing on a wide range of empirical research, including his own large-scale study of child abuse, he shows that none is actually supported by the evidence. Buller argues that our minds are not adapted to the Pleistocene, but, like the immune system, are continually adapting, over both evolutionary time and individual lifetimes. We must move beyond the reigning orthodoxy of evolutionary psychology to reach an accurate understanding of how human psychology is influenced by evolution. When we do, Buller claims, we will abandon not only the quest for human nature but the very idea of human nature itself.
Book Synopsis Human Nature and the Evolution of Society by : Stephen Sanderson
Download or read book Human Nature and the Evolution of Society written by Stephen Sanderson and published by Westview Press. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, and human behavioral ecology, this introduction to human behavior and the organization of social life explores the evolutionary dynamics underlying social life.
Book Synopsis Evolution and Human Behavior by : John Cartwright
Download or read book Evolution and Human Behavior written by John Cartwright and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book covers fundamental issues such as the origins and function of sexual reproduction, mating behavior, human mate choice, patterns of violence in families, altruistic behavior, the evolution of brain size and the origins of language, the modular mind, and the relationship between genes and culture.
Book Synopsis The Good Book of Human Nature by : Carel van Schaik
Download or read book The Good Book of Human Nature written by Carel van Schaik and published by . This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In The Good Book of Human Nature, evolutionary anthropologist Carel van Schaik and historian Kai Michel advance a new view of Homo sapiens' cultural evolution. The Bible, they argue, was written to make sense of the single greatest change in history: the transition from egalitarian hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies. Religion arose as a strategy to cope with the unprecedented levels of epidemic disease, violence, inequality, and injustice that confronted us when we abandoned the bush--and which still confront us today, "--Amazon.com.
Book Synopsis Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development by : Robert G. Burgess
Download or read book Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development written by Robert G. Burgess and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2005 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development's Comprehensive coverage on current thinking about the impact of evolutionary theory on human development provides students with the most thorough grounding available in this area. Contributions by leading scholars and researchers expose students first-hand to the thinking of widely recognized experts and the exciting contributions they have been making to this field. To ensure accessibility in classroom settings, chapters have been written according to uniform guidelines for length and format, with cross-references between chapters and a style appropriate to upper-division undergraduate and beginning graduate psychology students. To further facilitate the use of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development as supplemental classroom reading, the volume editors provide an introductory overview chapter and a concluding chapter that sums up the book.
Book Synopsis The Biological Roots of Human Nature by : Timothy H. Goldsmith
Download or read book The Biological Roots of Human Nature written by Timothy H. Goldsmith and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1994-10-20 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this stimulating book, Goldsmith argues that biology has a great deal to say that should be of interest to social scientists, historians, philosophers, and humanists in general. He believes that anyone studying the social behavior of humans must take into consideration both proximate cause--the physiology, biochemistry, and social mechanisms of behavior--and ultimate cause--how the behavior came to exist in evolutionary time. Goldsmith, a neurobiologist, draws examples from neurobiology, psychology, and ethology (behavioral evolution). The result is a work that overcomes many of the misconceptions that have hindered the rich contributions the biological sciences have to offer concerning the evolution of human society, behavior, and sense of identity. Among the key topics addressed are the nature of biological explanation, the relationship between genes and behavior, those aspects of behavior most likely to respond to natural selection, the relationship between evolution and learning, and some probable modes of interaction between cultural and biological evolution. By re-examining the role of biological explanation in the domain of social development, the author has significantly advanced a more well-rounded view of human evolution and shed new light on the perennial question of what it means to be human. His book will appeal to biologists, social scientists, traditional humanists, and interested general readers.
Book Synopsis On Human Nature by : Edward O. Wilson
Download or read book On Human Nature written by Edward O. Wilson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-11 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his new preface E. O. Wilson reflects on how he came to write this book: how The Insect Societies led him to write Sociobiology, and how the political and religious uproar that engulfed that book persuaded him to write another book that would better explain the relevance of biology to the understanding of human behavior.
Book Synopsis The Social Evolution of Human Nature by : Harry Smit
Download or read book The Social Evolution of Human Nature written by Harry Smit and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-03 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harry Smit examines the elements of current evolutionary theory and how they bear on the evolution of the human mind.
Book Synopsis Essential Building Blocks of Human Nature by : Ulrich J. Frey
Download or read book Essential Building Blocks of Human Nature written by Ulrich J. Frey and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-11-08 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To understand why we humans are as we are, it is necessary to look at the essential building blocks that comprise our nature. The foundations of this structure are our evolutionary origins as primates and our social roots. Upon these rest features such as our emotions, language and aesthetic preferences, with our self-perceptions, self-deceptions and thirst for knowledge right at the top. The unifying force holding these blocks together is evolutionary theory. Evolution provides a deeper understanding of human nature and, in particular, of the common roots of these different perspectives. To build a reliable and coherent model of man, leading authors from fields as diverse as primatology, anthropology, neurobiology and philosophy have joined forces to present essays each describing their own expert perspective. Together they provide a convincing and complete picture of our own human nature.
Book Synopsis New Evolutionary Social Science by : Heinz-Jurgen Niedenzu
Download or read book New Evolutionary Social Science written by Heinz-Jurgen Niedenzu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social scientists have long declared their autonomy from the natural sciences, and in doing so have tended to neglect important biological constraints on human nature. Many sociological theories have suggested a nearly complete malleability of patterns of social life. The New Evolutionary Social Science challenges this view by building on Stephen K. Sanderson's 'Darwinian conflict theory' which sets out to synthesise sociological theories with key findings from biology into an overarching scientific paradigm. Configuring and expanding this groundbreaking theory, the contributors to this volume are well-known European and American experts in evolutionary science. The New Evolutionary Social Science develops a new basis for understanding social change and the world's future through a better integration of the natural and social sciences.
Book Synopsis A New Theory of Human Evolution by : Sir Arthur Keith
Download or read book A New Theory of Human Evolution written by Sir Arthur Keith and published by . This book was released on 1948 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays advancing the group theory; Mention of Aborigines intermittantly throughout volume; Physical traits, territories, marriage customs, etc.
Book Synopsis In Search of Human Nature by : Carl N. Degler
Download or read book In Search of Human Nature written by Carl N. Degler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1992-11-05 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1972, and a past president of both the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association, Carl Degler is one of America's most eminent living historians. He is also one of the most versatile. In a forty year career, he has written brilliantly on race (Neither Black Nor White, which won the Pulitzer Prize), women's studies (At Odds, which Betty Friedan called "a stunning book"), Southern history (The Other South), the New Deal, and many other subjects. Now, in The Search for Human Nature, Degler turns to perhaps his largest subject yet, a sweeping history of the impact of Darwinism (and biological research) on our understanding of human nature, providing a fascinating overview of the social sciences in the last one hundred years. The idea of a biological root to human nature was almost universally accepted at the turn of the century, Degler points out, then all but vanished from social thought only to reappear in the last four decades. Degler traces the early history of this idea, from Darwin's argument that our moral and emotional life evolved from animals just as our human shape did, to William James's emphasis on instinct in human behavior (then seen as a fundamental insight of psychology). We also see the many applications of biology, from racism, sexism, and Social Darwinism to the rise of intelligence testing, the eugenics movement, and the practice of involuntary sterilization of criminals (a public policy pioneered in America, which had sterilization laws 25 years before Nazi Germany--one such law was upheld by Oliver Wendell Holmes's Supreme Court). Degler then examines the work of those who denied any role for biology, who thought culture shaped human nature, a group ranging from Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, and Margaret Mead, to John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner. Equally important, he examines the forces behind this fundamental shift in a scientific paradigm, arguing that ideological reasons--especially the struggle against racism and sexism in America--led to this change in scientific thinking. Finally, Degler considers the revival of Darwinism without the Social Darwinism, racism, and sexism, led first by ethologists such as Karl von Frisch, Nikolaas Tinbergen, Konrad Lorenz, and Jane Goodall--who revealed clear parallels between animal and human behavior--and followed in varying degrees by such figures as Melvin Konner, Alice Rossi, Jerome Kagen, and Edward O. Wilson as well as others in anthropology, political science, sociology, and economics. What kind of animal is Homo sapiens and how did we come to be this way? In this wide ranging history, Carl Degler traces our attempts over the last century to answer these questions. In doing so, he has produced a volume that will fascinate anyone curious about the nature of human beings.
Book Synopsis Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior by : Robert J. Richards
Download or read book Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior written by Robert J. Richards and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 719 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With insight and wit, Robert J. Richards focuses on the development of evolutionary theories of mind and behavior from their first distinct appearance in the eighteenth century to their controversial state today. Particularly important in the nineteenth century were Charles Darwin's ideas about instinct, reason, and morality, which Richards considers against the background of Darwin's personality, training, scientific and cultural concerns, and intellectual community. Many critics have argued that the Darwinian revolution stripped nature of moral purpose and ethically neutered the human animal. Richards contends, however, that Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and their disciples attempted to reanimate moral life, believing that the evolutionary process gave heart to unselfish, altruistic behavior. "Richards's book is now the obvious introduction to the history of ideas about mind and behavior in the nineteenth century."—Mark Ridley, Times Literary Supplement "Not since the publication of Michael Ghiselin's The Triumph of the Darwinian Method has there been such an ambitious, challenging, and methodologically self-conscious interpretation of the rise and development and evolutionary theories and Darwin's role therein."—John C. Greene, Science "His book . . . triumphantly achieves the goal of all great scholarship: it not only informs us, but shows us why becoming thus informed is essential to understanding our own issues and projects."—Daniel C. Dennett, Philosophy of Science
