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Author: Günter Dux
Publisher: Transcript Publishing
ISBN: 9783837615135
Category : Civilization
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The book focuses on the modern understanding of human life-forms as constructs that followed an evolutionary history. The author thus finds science confronted with two questions: firstly, how the transgression of the virtual threshold between natural and cultural history was possible, secondly, how the socio-cultural constructs were able to develop in the course of history the way they did. The discussion concentrates on the problem of determining a processual logic in the development of societal structures as well as in the development of cognition. The focus of attention is the historico-genetic reconstruction of cognition. The book was originally published in German as Historisch-genetische Theorie der Kultur (Weilerswist 2000: Velbrück).
Author: Günter Dux
Publisher: Transcript Publishing
ISBN: 9783837615135
Category : Civilization
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The book focuses on the modern understanding of human life-forms as constructs that followed an evolutionary history. The author thus finds science confronted with two questions: firstly, how the transgression of the virtual threshold between natural and cultural history was possible, secondly, how the socio-cultural constructs were able to develop in the course of history the way they did. The discussion concentrates on the problem of determining a processual logic in the development of societal structures as well as in the development of cognition. The focus of attention is the historico-genetic reconstruction of cognition. The book was originally published in German as Historisch-genetische Theorie der Kultur (Weilerswist 2000: Velbrück).
Author: Günter Dux
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839415136
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 415
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Book Description
The book focuses on the modern understanding of human life-forms as constructs that followed an evolutionary history. The author thus finds science confronted with two questions: firstly, how the transgression of the virtual threshold between natural and cultural history was possible, secondly, how the socio-cultural constructs were able to develop in the course of history the way they did. The discussion concentrates on the problem of determining a processual logic in the development of societal structures as well as in the development of cognition. The focus of attention is the historico-genetic reconstruction of cognition. The book was originally published in German as »Historisch-genetische Theorie der Kultur« (Weilerswist 2000: Velbrück).
Author: William H. Durham
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804721561
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 658
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Book Description
Charles Darwin's "On the Origins of Species" had two principal goals: to show that species had not been separately created and to show that natural selection had been the main force behind their proliferation and descent from common ancestors. In "Coevolution," the author proposes a powerful new theory of cultural evolution--that is, of the descent with modification of the shared conceptual systems we call "cultures"--that is parallel in many ways to Darwin's theory of organic evolution. The author suggests that a process of cultural selection, or preservation by preference, driven chiefly by choice or imposition depending on the circumstances, has been the main but not exclusive force of cultural change. He shows that this process gives rise to five major patterns or "modes" in which cultural change is at odds with genetic change. Each of the five modes is discussed in some detail and its existence confirmed through one or more case studies chosen for their heuristic value, the robustness of their data, and their broader implications. But "Coevolution" predicts not simply the existence of the five modes of gene-culture relations; it also predicts their relative importance in the ongoing dynamics of cultural change in particular cases. The case studies themselves are lucid and innovative reexaminations of an array of oft-pondered anthropological topics--plural marriage, sickle-cell anemia, basic color terms, adult lactose absorption, incest taboos, headhunting, and cannibalism. In a general case, the author's goal is to demonstrate that an evolutionary analysis of both genes and culture has much to contribute to our understanding of human diversity, particularly behavioral diversity, and thus to the resolution of age-old questions about nature and nurture, genes and culture.
Author: Charles J Lumsden
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 981448069X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 496
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Book Description
Long considered one of the most provocative and demanding major works on human sociobiology, Genes, Mind, and Culture introduces the concept of gene-culture coevolution. It has been out of print for several years, and in this volume Lumsden and Wilson provide a much needed facsimile edition of their original work, together with a major review of progress in the discipline during the ensuing quarter century. They argue compellingly that human nature is neither arbitrary nor predetermined, and identify mechanisms that energize the upward translation from genes to culture. The authors also assess the properties of genetic evolution of mind within emergent cultural patterns. Lumsden and Wilson explore the rich and sophisticated data of developmental psychology and cognitive science in a fashion that, for the first time, aligns these disciplines with human sociobiology. The authors also draw on population genetics, cultural anthropology, and mathematical physics to set human sociobiology on a predictive base, and so trace the main steps that lead from the genes through human consciousness to culture. Contents:The Next Synthesis: 25 Years of Genes, Mind, and CultureThe Primary Epigenetic RulesThe Secondary Epigenetic RulesGene-Culture TranslationThe Gene-Culture Adaptive LandscapeThe Coevolutionary CircuitThe Biogeography of the MindGene-Culture Coevolution and Social Theory Readership: For the biological and social scientists, as well as applied mathematicians, philosophers, and historians of science, the book will indeed interest and be accessible to researchers, academics and lecturers. Keywords:Genes;Genome;Mind;Culture;Sociobiology;Meme;Consilience;Holism;Consciousness;Development;Epigenesis;Epigenetic;Emergence;Social Physics;Evolution;Darwin;Nonlinear Dynamics;Complexity;ChaosKey Features:Presents a richly multidisciplinary subject matter that appeal to academic readers in the biological, social, and mathematical sciences, as well as in philosophy and the history of scienceEach chapter is organized in a way that non-mathematical readers can assess the key arguments and results while reserving the mathematical sections for future studyExtensive use of diagrams and graphics supplement each chapter's text and mathematical developmentsA Glossary section makes the book's technical vocabulary instantly accessible at any point in the text
Author: Heiner Mühlmann
Publisher: Springer
ISBN:
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 156
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Book Description
How do stress behaviour, cooperation and the cultural evaluation of rules create cultural characteristics such as the two-thousand year old system of decorum and the principle of the sublime? Muhlmann describes how maximal-stress-cooperation (MSC) linked to the dynamics of warfare generates the cultural phenomenon of rule-adjustment-decorum, rule-adjustment being a discovery made while experimenting on Artificial Life. Using molecular and culture genetic as well as genetical algorithm methods, he proposes an evolutionary theory for Western culture.
Author: L L Cavalli-sforza
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209359
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 406
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Book Description
A number of scholars have found that concepts such as mutation, selection, and random drift, which emerged from the theory of biological evolution, may also explain evolutionary phenomena in other disciplines as well. Drawing on these concepts, Professors Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman classify and systematize the various modes of transmitting "culture" and explore their consequences for cultural evolution. In the process, they develop a mathematical theory of the non-genetic transmission of cultural traits that provides a framework for future investigations in quantitative social and anthropological science. The authors use quantitative models that incorporate the various modes of transmission (for example, parent-child, peer-peer, and teacher-student), and evaluate data from sociology, archaeology, and epidemiology in terms of the models. They show that the various modes of transmission in conjunction with cultural and natural selection produce various rates of cultural evolution and various degrees of diversity within and between groups. The same framework can be used for explaining phenomena as apparently unrelated as linguistics, epidemics, social values and customs, and diffusion of innovations. The authors conclude that cultural transmission is an essential factor in the study of cultural change.
Author: Ulrike Notarp
Publisher: Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press
ISBN: 8024643316
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
The study aims to describe value-formations in the area of family life and partnership in West and East Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland. The analysis of personal advertisements allowed the identification of basic values and attitudes that shape a culturally specific concept of life and partnership in each society. The comparison showed a systematic relationship: specifics in economic conditions, historical heritage and national past effect the idea of a good life and a good partnership.
Author: Charles J. Lumsden
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 456
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Book Description
Analyzes the reciprocative relationship between genes in individuals and the production of culture and shows how predictions about genetic evolution within a cultural pattern can be made.
Author: A. Fog
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401592519
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 332
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Book Description
1. INTRODUCTION This book describes a new interdisciplinary theory for explaining cultural change. In contrast to traditional evolutionist theories, the present theory stresses the fact that a culture can evolve in different directions depending on its life conditions. Cultural selection theory explains why certain cultures or cultural ele ments spread, possibly at the expense of other cultures or cultural elements which then disappear. Cultural elements include social structure, traditions, religion, rituals, art, norms, morals, ideologies, ideas, inventions, knowledge, technology, etc. This theory is inspired by Charles Darwin's idea of natural selection, because cultural elements are seen as analogous to genes in the sense that they may be reproduced from generation to generation and they may undergo change. A culture may evolve because certain cultural elements are more likely to spread and be reproduced than others, analogously to a species evolving because individuals possessing certain traits are more fit than others to reproduce and transmit these traits to their offspring.
Author: Robert Boyd
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226069338
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 339
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Book Description
How do biological, psychological, sociological, and cultural factors combine to change societies over the long run? Boyd and Richerson explore how genetic and cultural factors interact, under the influence of evolutionary forces, to produce the diversity we see in human cultures. Using methods developed by population biologists, they propose a theory of cultural evolution that is an original and fair-minded alternative to the sociobiology debate.
