The Sociobiology Debate

The Sociobiology Debate PDF Author: Arthur L. Caplan
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description

The Sociobiology Debate

The Sociobiology Debate PDF Author: Arthur L. Caplan
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description


Sexual Selections

Sexual Selections PDF Author: Marlene Zuk
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520937678
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
Scientific discoveries about the animal kingdom fuel ideological battles on many fronts, especially battles about sex and gender. We now know that male marmosets help take care of their offspring. Is this heartening news for today's stay-at-home dads? Recent studies show that many female birds once thought to be monogamous actually have chicks that are fathered outside the primary breeding pair. Does this information spell doom for traditional marriages? And bonobo apes take part in female-female sexual encounters. Does this mean that human homosexuality is natural? This highly provocative book clearly shows that these are the wrong kinds of questions to ask about animal behavior. Marlene Zuk, a respected biologist and a feminist, gives an eye-opening tour of some of the latest developments in our knowledge of animal sexuality and evolutionary biology. Sexual Selections exposes the anthropomorphism and gender politics that have colored our understanding of the natural world and shows how feminism can help move us away from our ideological biases. As she tells many amazing stories about animal behavior--whether of birds and apes or of rats and cockroaches--Zuk takes us to the places where our ideas about nature, gender, and culture collide. Writing in an engaging, conversational style, she discusses such politically charged topics as motherhood, the genetic basis for adultery, the female orgasm, menstruation, and homosexuality. She shows how feminism can give us the tools to examine sensitive issues such as these and to enhance our understanding of the natural world if we avoid using research to champion a feminist agenda and avoid using animals as ideological weapons. Zuk passionately asks us to learn to see the animal world on its own terms, with its splendid array of diversity and variation. This knowledge will give us a better understanding of animals and can ultimately change our assumptions about what is natural, normal, and even possible.

Selected Readings in Sociobiology

Selected Readings in Sociobiology PDF Author: James H. Hunt
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
ISBN:
Category : Behavior evolution
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description


The Politics of Human Nature

The Politics of Human Nature PDF Author: Thomas Fleming
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412838401
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
The effort to understand human nature in a political context is a daunting challenge that has been undertaken in a variety of ways and by a myriad of disciplines through the ages. From Plato to Hobbes and Burke, to Wallas and Oakeschott in our era, efforts have been made to provide some organic framework for the political study of mankind. What has added greatly to the complexity of the task is the increasing denial, even rejection, in the positivist and behaviorist traditions, of the very notion of a human nature. The work can be described as a series of interlocking propositions: the proverbial view of human nature can be explained by evolutionary theory. Biological differences between men and women are responsible for family, community and group life. Social evolution goes through stages which are recapitulated in the moral life of individuals. A well-defined federal system mirrors human development. And finally, for Fleming, most problems in social and political life stem from violations of this federalist system. Fleming's volume takes up a variety of issues: sex and gender differences, democracy and dictatorship, individual and familial patterns of association. He does so in the context of showing how forms of legitimate authority such as families, communities and nations establish such authority by appeals to human nature, and that these appeals, while presumably resting on empirical evidence, also confirm the existence of normative structures. Fleming's work is an effort of synthesis that is sure to arouse discussion and debate. It represents a serious addition to a literature retrieved from the historical dustbins to which it has been repeatedly consigned.

Human Nature and Biocultural Evolution

Human Nature and Biocultural Evolution PDF Author: Joseph Lopreato
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040306349
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
First published in 1984, Human Nature and Biocultural Evolution aims to delineate a theory of human nature, viewed as an interrelated set of genetically programmed behavioral predispositions, and a theory of biocultural evolution. The author’s approach is based on the hypothesis that innate predispositions and cultural-environmental factors cooperate to determine human behavior and socio-cultural forms. Professor Lopreato begins by tracing the development of evolutionary biology up to sociobiology. It is his argument that the social and biological disciplines have, for over a century, been moving towards a synthesis, and that Homo sapiens is neither just another animal, nor so unique a being that culture has become divorced from its genetic underpinnings. The argument is supported with evidence from evolutionary biology and social science, with a critical discussion of basic issues of behavioral science and with an analysis of certain famous theories in social science (e.g. theories of suicide, anomie, capitalism), which prove to be richer and more complete when viewed from a biocultural perspective. The theory of human nature is arrived at through a rich analysis of ethnographic, psychological, and sociological arguments and data, as well as facts and theories from comparative zoology. In the process, the author treats critically numerous theoretical problems associated with topics such as exploitation, class consciousness, structured inequality, reciprocal behavior, territorial aggression, religious ritual, socialization, ethnicity, and prejudice. The author concludes with an examination of behavioral predispositions that are hypothesized to be at the base of cultural variation.

National Union Catalog

National Union Catalog PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Union catalogs
Languages : en
Pages : 1032

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Book Description
Includes entries for maps and atlases.

Why Gould Was Wrong

Why Gould Was Wrong PDF Author: Nils K. Oeijord
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595301568
Category : Evolution (Biology)
Languages : en
Pages : 723

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Book Description
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) was a leading critic of human behavioral genetics, human sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and the modern evolutionary synthesis. Why Gould Was Wrong explains why Gould's claims were horribly wrong.

Genesis: The Deep Origin of Societies

Genesis: The Deep Origin of Societies PDF Author: Edward O. Wilson
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631495550
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 131

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Book Description
“The book bursts to life with [Wilson’s] observations of nature, from fire ants and social spiders to starlings.”—Aarathi Prasad, New York Times Book Review An “endlessly fascinating” (Michael Ruse) work of scientific thought and synthesis, Genesis is Edward O. Wilson’s twenty-first-century statement on Darwinian evolution. Asserting that religious creeds and philosophical questions can be reduced to purely genetic and evolutionary components, and that the human body and mind have a physical base obedient to the laws of physics and chemistry, Wilson demonstrates that the only way for us to fully understand human behavior is to study the evolutionary histories of nonhuman species. At least seventeen of these species—among them the African naked mole rat and the sponge-dwelling shrimp—have been found to have advanced societies based on altruism and cooperation. Braiding twenty-first- century scientific theory with the lyrical biological and humanistic observations for which Wilson is beloved, Genesis is “a magisterial history of social evolution, from clouds of midges or sparrows to the grotesqueries of ant colonies” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

The Politics of Human Nature

The Politics of Human Nature PDF Author: John H. Kautsky
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351476971
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
The effort to understand human nature in a political context is a daunting challenge that has been undertaken in a variety of ways and by a myriad of disciplines through the ages. From Plato to Hobbes and Burke, to Wallas and Oakeschott in our era, efforts have been made to provide some organic framework for the political study of mankind. What has added greatly to the complexity of the task is the increasing denial, even rejection, in the positivist and behaviorist traditions, of the very notion of a human nature.The work can be described as a series of interlocking propositions: the proverbial view of human nature can be explained by evolutionary theory. Biological differences between men and women are responsible for family, community and group life. Social evolution goes through stages which are recapitulated in the moral life of individuals. A well-defined federal system mirrors human development. And finally, for Fleming, most problems in social and political life stem from violations of this federalist system.Fleming's volume takes up a variety of issues: sex and gender differences, democracy and dictatorship, individual and familial patterns of association. He does so in the context of showing how forms of legitimate authority such as families, communities and nations establish such authority by appeals to human nature, and that these appeals, while presumably resting on empirical evidence, also confirm the existence of normative structures. Fleming's work is an effort of synthesis that is sure to arouse discussion and debate. It represents a serious addition to a literature retrieved from the historical dustbins to which it has been repeatedly consigned.

Evolution: Genesis and Revelations

Evolution: Genesis and Revelations PDF Author: C. Leon Harris
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438405847
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
In this comprehensive history of evolutionism, C. Leon Harris has combined primary source readings with clear, pertinent background information, to provide a solid basic understanding of the ways scientists have arrived at today's views of evolution. Harris describes the major contributors to the theory of evolutionism, placing each in the context of the general cultural influences to which he was exposed. Each chapter also contains an explanation of the philosophical basis of the scientific approach of the period in question. A lengthy bibliography provides direction for further reading on this important and timely subject.