Download or read book Marxism and Human Sociobiology written by Boshu Zhang and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, the author attempts to reveal the heart of a Chinese intellectual. By attempting to scientifically, historically, and even practically, examine the reasons behind the present state of Chinese social, political, economical, and academic life.

Download or read book Marx and Sociobiology written by George A. Huaco and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provocative in content, this book is the only one of its kind to evaluate Marx's work in light of recent theories in sociobiology. Huaco identifies several dynamic aspects of Marx's socio-cultural model and uses current research concerning the genetic basis of certain human behaviors to determine their validity. Specifically, he examines issues surrounding ownership relations, surplus transfer and economic exploitation, class struggle, and the development of high culture. In addition to arguing that innovation and competition are necessary to prevent a stagnant economy, Huaco contends that stopping surplus transfer will not eliminate poverty as Marx maintained. Instead of retaining surplus, society can develop ways to recover surplus that will put an end to poverty and the social problems that stem from it. Sociologists and other scholars interested in socio-economic theory will find this thought provoking work stimulating.

Download or read book Sociobiology and the Human Dimension written by Georg Breuer and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on 1983-01-13 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about animals and humans - their common features and their gradual and principle differences. It tells of democracy in baboons, prostitution in hummingbirds, bigamy in wrens, baby sitting in jackals, of chimpanzees at the computer console and of the super-ego of dogs - but it is also about the labour productivity of hunter and gatherer peoples, incest avoidance in animals and humans and of the myths about matriarchy. In a language accessible to any interested layman, Georg Breuer, gives a balanced account of the main ideas and achievements of sociobiology and the main criticisms levelled against it. According to him sociobiology has given many a valuable impetus but sometimes presents a distorted or one-sided view. In particular it has not answered or addressed the question of why man, and man only, is able to identify and feel sympathy with any other human being. The evolution of this most human of all traits confers on us the capability for charity and solidarity and for the happiness of true love which is unattainable by any animal.

Download or read book On Human Nature written by Edward O. Wilson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2004-10-18 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preface 1 Dilemma 2 Heredity 3 Development 4 Emergence 5 Aggression 6 Sex 7 Altruism 8 Religion 9 Hope Glossary Notes Index.

Download or read book Sociobiology and Law written by Allan Ardill and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The place of humans in nature and the nature of humans eludes us and yet there are those certain these issues can be reduced to biological explanations. Similarly, there are those rejecting the biological determinist hypothesis in favour of the equally unsubstantiated cultural construction hypothesis. This thesis draws on neo-Marxism and feminist intersectional post-positivist standpoint theory to posit biological and cultural determinism as privileged and flawed knowledge produced within relations of asymmetrical power. Instead "social construction" is preferred viewing knowledge of both nature and culture as partial and constructed within an historical, socioeconomic and political context according to asymmetrical power. Social constructionists prefer to question the role of power in the production of knowledge rather than asking questions about the place of humans in nature and the nature of humans; and trying to answer those questions through methods imbued with western, colonial, patriarchal, homophobic, and positivist ideals. As a starting point the postmodern view that knowledge is incomplete and has no ultimate authority is accepted. However, this thesis departs from postmodernism on the premise that knowledge is not all relative and can be critiqued by drawing on neo-Marxist and feminist intersectional post-positivist standpoint theory. Standpoint theory presumes a knowledge power nexus and contends accountable, ethical and responsible knowledge can be produced provided an "upwards perspective" is applied commencing with the standpoint of the most marginalised group within a given context. This approach to knowledge is applied to critically assess the role played by law in reproducing hierarchy and oppression in the categories of socioeconomic class, gender, sexuality and race to show that the law is sociobiological. My thesis is that human hierarchy and oppression are not natural or inevitable and are instead socially constructed through human action and institutions, including law. As social constructions, hierarchy and oppression must continually be justified as natural and inevitable otherwise they are vulnerable to change and destabilisation. It is argued here that a dominant justification for hierarchy and oppression is sociobiology because it naturalises and reifies human action and institutions as being determined by biology. As a legal justification sociobiology is defined as any discourse purporting to be based on "nature", biological or evolutionary theories and "facts" to justify or reify hierarchy and domination. Unlike other ideologies, sociobiology is a dominant ideology because it is used to justify hierarchy and oppression in all the usual categories - class, gender, sexuality and race -- and there is evidence of this in law. The argument is novel to the extent that sociobiology is not a dominant ideology in a conventional sense - as a cause of stratification - but in the sense that it is a dominant thematic excuse; whether or not those excuses are actually accepted. Nor is it posited as a dominant ideology in the sense that it is a top-down ideology imposed on, or duping subalterns. Rather, sociobiology is dominant because it can supply excuses for the naturalisation of human action in general and because it is more amenable to application by the powerful than the disempowered by virtue of that power. In western societies ideologies were once grounded in theology according to Christian decrees and beliefs. Since the Renaissance and the shift from feudalism to capitalism, ideologies have become more secular. A leading secular ideology is sociobiology being a collection of ideas closely linked to the antecedents of capitalism and continuing alongside it to the present day. Sociobiology is understood in this thesis in three overlapping ways. It includes modern sciences clustered around E.O. Wilson's famous 1975 essay Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. It is also a long historical tradition of scholarly theories about human nature and the place of humans in nature sharing the idea that human hierarchies on the basis of race, gender, sexuality and class are attributable variously to the work of God, nature, biology, and genes. Lastly it is an ideology. As an ideology, sociobiology is taken to be part of a long tradition of using the authority of privileged "knowledge" about nature to justify action and institutions that have the effect of creating and retaining hierarchy and oppression. This includes law.

Download or read book Essays in Human Sociobiology written by Jan Wind and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book On Human Nature written by Edward O. Wilson and published by Cambridge : Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1978-10-02 with total page 280 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.

Download or read book Marxism and the Critique of Sociobiology written by Stephen Edward Pomper and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Human Sociobiology written by Daniel G. Freedman and published by New York : Free Press. This book was released on 1979 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Not in Our Genes written by Richard Lewontin and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three eminent scientists analyze the scientific, social, and political roots of biological determinism.

Download or read book Nature Human Nature and Society written by Paul Heyer and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1982-09-29 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Not in Our Genes written by Richard C. Lewontin and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 1984 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three eminent scientists analyze the scientific, social, and political roots of biological determinism.

Download or read book Sociobiology Sex and Science written by Harmon R. Holcomb III and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1993-01-07 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines sociobiology's validity and significance, using the sociobiological theory of the evolution of mating and parenting as an example. It identifies and discusses the array of factors that determine sociobiology's effort to become a science, providing a rare, balanced account—more critical than that of its advocates and more constructive than that of its critics. It sees a role for sociobiology in changing the way we understand the goals of evolutionary biology, the proper way to evaluate emerging sciences, and the deep structure of scientific theories. The book's premise is that evolutionary biology would not be complete if it did not explain evolutionarily significant social facts about nonhumans and humans. It proposes that explanations should be evaluated in terms of their basis in underlying theories, research programs, and conceptual frameworks.

Download or read book Defenders of the Truth written by Ullica Christina Olofsdotter Segerstråle and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2000 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the last twenty-five years, sociobiologists have come under continuous attack by a group of left-wing academics, who have accused the former of dubious and politically dangerous science. Many have taken the critics' charges at face value. But have the critics been right? And what are their own motivations? This book strives to set the record straight. It shows that the criticism has typically been unfair. Still, it cannot be dismissed as 'purely politically motivated'. It turnsout that the critics and the sociobiologists live in different worlds of taken-for-granted scientific and moral convictions. The conflict over sociobiology is best interpreted as a drawn-out battle about the nature of 'good science' and the social responsibility of the scientist, while it touches on such grand themes as the unity of knowledge, the nature of man, and free will and determinism. The author has stepped right into the hornet's nest of claims and counterclaims, moral concerns, metaphysical beliefs, political convictions, strawmen, red herrings, and gossip, gossip, gossip. She listens to the protagonists - but also to their colleagues. She checks with 'arbiters'. She plays the devil's advocate. And everyone is eager to tell her the truth - as they see it. The picture that emerges is a different one from the standard view of the sociobiology debate as a politically motivated nature-nurture conflict. Instead, we are confronted with a world of scientific and moral long-term agendas, for which the sociobiology debate became a useful vehicle. Behind the often nasty attacks, however, were shared Enlightenment concerns for universal truth, morality and justice. The protagonists were all defenders of the truth - it was just that everyone's truth was different. Defenders of the Truth provides a fascinating insight into the world of science. It follows the sociobiology controversy as it erupted at Harvard in 1975 until today, both in the US and the UK. But the story goes more deeply, for instance in its account of the circumstances surrounding W.D. Hamilton's famous 1964 paper on inclusive fitness, and on the connections of the sociobiology debate to the Human Genome project and the Science Wars. General readers and academics alike will find much to savour in this book.

Download or read book Race Unmasked written by Michael Yudell and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Race, while drawn from the visual cues of human diversity, is an idea with a measurable past, an identifiable present, and an uncertain future. The concept of race has been at the center of both triumphs and tragedies in American history and has had a profound effect on the human experience. Race Unmasked revisits the origins of commonly held beliefs about the scientific nature of racial differences, examines the roots of the modern idea of race, and explains why race continues to generate controversy as a tool of classification even in our genomic age. Surveying the work of some of the twentieth century's most notable scientists, Race Unmasked reveals how genetics and related biological disciplines formed and preserved ideas of race and, at times, racism. A gripping history of science and scientists, Race Unmasked elucidates the limitations of a racial worldview and throws the contours of our current and evolving understanding of human diversity into sharp relief.

Download or read book The Philosophy of Human Evolution written by Michael Ruse and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-12 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a unique discussion of human evolution from a philosophical viewpoint, covering such issues as religion, race and gender.

Download or read book Sociobiology Sense or Nonsense written by M. Ruse and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In June 1975, the distinguished Harvard entomologist Edward O. Wilson published a truly huge book entitled, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. In this book, drawing on both fact and theory, Wilson tried to present a com prehensive overview of the rapidly growing subject of 'sociobiology', the study of the biological nature and foundations of animal behaviour, more precisely animal social behaviour. Although, as the title rather implies, Wilson was more surveying and synthesising than developing new material, he com pensated by giving the most thorough and inclusive treatment possible, beginning in the animal world with the most simple of forms, and progressing via insects, lower invertebrates, mammals and primates, right up to and in cluding our own species, Homo sapiens. Initial reaction to the book was very favourable, but before the year was out it came under withering attack from a group of radical scientists in the Boston area, who styled themselves 'The Science for the People Sociobiology Study Group'. Criticism, of course, is what every academic gets (and needs!); but, for two reasons, this attack was particularly unpleasant. First, not only were Wilson's ideas attacked, but he himself was smeared by being linked with the most reactionary of political thinkers, including the Nazis.