The Darwinian Heritage and Sociobiology

by David Smillie, Johan M. van der Dennen, Daniel R. Wilson

Overview

The editors present a collection of essays dealing with both the life and ideas of Charles Darwin as they relate to human sociobiology. They represent themes coming from evolutionary theory, cultural anthropology, political science, sociology, and psychology and psychiatry. Consistent with E. O. Wilson's Consilience, the compilation also reflects an interest in the humanities and thus offers materials exploring the possibility of a broad synthesis of knowledge relating to human nature.

Beyond the theory and evidence offered in these disciplines is the promise of finding explanations for, and solutions to, current human differences and problems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275964368
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/30/1999
Series:	Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.94(d)
Lexile:	1400L (what's this?)

About the Author

JOHAN M. G. van der DENNEN, born in Eindhoven (the Netherlands) in 1944, studied behavioral sciences at the University of Groningen, and is at present a researcher at the Section Political Science of the Department of Legal Theory, formerly the Polemological (Peace Institute), University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He has published extensively on all aspects of human and animal aggression, sexual violence, neuro- and psychopathology of human violence, political violence, theories of war causation, macroquantitative research on contemporary wars, ethnocentrism, and the politics of peace and war in preindustrial societies. In 1995 he published his dissertation, The Origin of War: The Evolution of a Male-Coalitional Reproductive Strategy, an evolutionary analysis of the origin of intergroup violence in humans and animals. He is Secretary of the European Sociobiological Society (ESS).

DAVID SMILLIE was trained as a developmental psychologist and taught at New College, University of South Florida for 25 years./e Since retiring, he has been working as a Visiting Professor in Zoology at Duke University. His articles and book chapters have appeared widely in scholarly publications.

DANIEL R. WILSON is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati and Medical Director for Public Psychiatry. He has published widely in both general and evolutionary psychiatry.

Table of Contents

Introduction by the editors
Biological Foundations
Group Selection and the Selfish Gene: The Units of Selection Problem Revisited by Michael J.C. Waller
The Implications of Darwin's Variational Paradigm by David Smillie
Co-operative Genes: Synergy and the Bioeconomics of Evolution by Peter A. Corning
Sociobiology and Culture
Sociobiology of Human Co-operation: The Interplay of Ultimate and Proximate Causes by Peter Meyer
Evolution and Culture: The Missing Link by Robin Allott
Evolution: Implications for Epistemology and Cultural Variation by Dennis Werner
Culture and the Darwinian Heritage: Implications for Literary Research in the University by John Constable
Sociobiology and Political Science
Marx, Darwin, and Human Nature by Lucio Ferreira Alves
Culture and the Evolution of the Human Mating System by Pouwel Slurink
Human Evolution and the Origin of War: A Darwinian Heritage by Johan M.G. van der Dennen
Ethnic Conflicts and Ethnic Nepotism by Tatu Vanhanen
Mating Patterns and Their Role in the Formation and Structure of the Abbad Tribe in Jordan by Abdalla J. Nabulsi
Individual Differences, Brain Size, and Evolutionary Science by J. Philippe Rushton
Sociobiology and the Concerns of Sociologists
With Whom Was Darwin Supposed to Fall in Love? by Ada Lampert
Grandparental Caregiving and Intergenerational Relations Reflect Reproductive Strategies by Harald A. Euler and Barbara Weitzel
Marital Power Dynamics: A Darwinian Perspective by Norma J. Schell and Carol C. Weisfeld
Sexual Dimorphism and the Evolution of Gender Stereotypes in Man: A Sociobiological Perspective by Marina L. Butovskaya and Alexander G. Kozintsev
Evolutionary Psychology and Psychiatry
Darwin and the 18th Century British Moral Tradition by Michael Bradie
Evolutionary Psychology: The Appropriate Disciplinary Link between Evolutionary Theory and the Social Sciences by Charles Elworthy
Implications of Sexual Selections for Variation in Human Personality and Behaviour by John S. Price
Serotonin, Dopamine, and the Evolution of Morality via Sociophysiological Neurotransmission by Daniel R. Wilson, Sean Stanton, and Sandra Wilson
Darwinian Analysis of the Emotion of Pride/Shame by Glenn Weisfeld
For Further Reading
Index

Editorial Reviews

Originating at the 18th annual meeting of the European Sociobiological Society at Christ's College, Cambridge (held in 1995), these 22 contributions by an interdisciplinary group of scholars explore the contributions that evolutionary and biological ideas can make to such fields as political science, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and the humanities. Specific topics include the notion of "populations" of readings in literary study, the Darwinian perspective on marital relations, human evolution and the origin of war, and the implications of evolution for Marxist utopian theory. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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