1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910272349903321

Autore

Greenwood Davydd J

Titolo

The Taming of Evolution : The Persistence of Nonevolutionary Views in the Study of Humans / / by Davydd J. Greenwood

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cornell University Press, 2018

Ithaca : , : Cornell University Press, , 1984

©1984

ISBN

9780801419882

9781501719936

1501719939

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (225 pages) : illustrations

Disciplina

573

Soggetti

Physical anthropology - Philosophy

Sociobiology

Nature and nurture

Human evolution

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Bibliography: p. 211-220.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- Preface -- INTRODUCTION: The Darwinian Revolution? -- I Major Western Views of Nature -- II Simple Continuities -- III Complex Continuities -- CONCLUSION: The Unmet Challenges of Evolutionary Biology -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

The theory of evolution has clearly altered our views of the biological world, but in the study of human beings, evolutionary and preevolutionary views continue to coexist in a state of perpetual tension. The Taming of Evolution addresses the questions of how and why this is so. Davydd Greenwood offers a sustained critique of the nature/nurture debate, revealing the complexity of the relationship between science and ideology. He maintains that popular contemporary theories, most notably E. O. Wilson's human sociobiology and Marvin Harris's cultural materialism, represent pre-Darwinian notions overlaid by elaborate evolutionary terminology. Greenwood first details the humoral-environmental and Great Chain of Being theories that dominated Western thinking before Darwin. He systematically compares



these ideas with those later influenced by Darwin's theories, illuminating the surprising continuities between them. Greenwood suggests that it would be neither difficult nor socially dangerous to develop a genuinely evolutionary understanding of human beings, so long as we realized that we could not derive political and moral standards from the study of biological processes.