Alas Poor Darwin: Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology - Softcover

Rose, Hilary; Rose, Steven

 
9780099283195: Alas Poor Darwin: Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0099283190 ISBN 13: 9780099283195
Verlag: Vintage, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

Today, genes are called upon to explain almost every aspect of our lives, from social inequalities to health, sexual preference and criminality. Based on Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection, Evolutionary Psychology with its claim that 'it's all in our genes' has become the most popular scientific theory of the late 20th century. Books such as Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, Edward O.Wilson's Consilience and Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct have become bestsellers and frame the public debate on human life and development: we can see their influence as soon as we open a Sunday newspaper. In recent years, however, many biologists and social scientists have begun to contest this new biological determinism and shown that Evolutionary Psychology rests on shaky empirical evidence, flawed premises and unexamined political presuppositions. In this provocative and ground-breaking book, Hilary and Steven Rose have gathered together the most eminent and outspoken critics of this fashionable ideology, ranging from Stephen Jay Gould and Patrick Bateson to Mary Midgley, Tim Ingold and Annette Karmiloff-Smith. What emerges is a new perspective on human development which acknowledges the complexity of life by placing at its centre the living organism rather than the gene.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Steven Rose is Professor of Biology and Neurobiology at the Open University and University of London. From 1999 to 2002 he was joint Professor of Physiology at Gresham College, London with his wife, the sociologist Hilary Rose. She is currently Visiting Research Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, Professor Emeritus of Social Policy at the University of Bradford and Professor Emeritus of Physick, Gresham College, London, UK.

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Perhaps the nadir of evolutionary psychology's specultive fantasies was reached earlier this year with the publication of A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, by Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer. In characteristic EP style, Thornhill and Palmer argue that rape is an adaptive strategy by which otherwise sexually unsuccessful men propagate their genes by mating with fertile women. To make this claim they draw extensively on examples of forced sex among animals, which they insist on categorizing as "rape." Yet as long ago as the 1980s the leading journals in the field of animal behavior rejected this type of sociobiological strategy which anthropomorphizes animal behavior. Specifically, using the term "rape" to refer to forced sex by mallard ducks or scorpion flies (Thornhill's animal of study) was ruled out, as it is not a helpful concept in the nonhuman context because it conflates conspicuous differences between human and other animals' practices of forced sex. Above all forced sex among animals always takes place with fertile females--hence the reproductive potential. As those women's groups, lawyers and feminist criminologists who have confronted rape over the last three decades have documented, victims of rape are often either too young or too old to be fertile. The universalistic explanation offered by Thornhill and Palmer simply fails to address the evidence. Instead they insult women, victims and nonvictims alike, by suggesting, for example, that a tight blouse is in itself an automatic invitation to sex. They insist on distal (in their slightly archaic language, "ultimate") explanations when proximate ones are so much more explanatory (see Steven Rose's chapter). Further, given the difficulties of securing convictions, and the immense guilt which still surrounds rape victims so that tragically they feel they have brought rape on themselves, the measurements of the incidence of rape are extremely frail. Despite their protestations that they want to help women, the version of evolutionary psychology offered by Thornhill and Palmer is offensive both to women and also to the project of building a culture which rejects rape.


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Verlag
Vintage
Erscheinungsdatum
2001
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0099283190
ISBN 13 
9780099283195
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
304
Kontakt zum Hersteller
EDITIONS GALLIMARD
ufficio.anagrafiche@meli.it

Via Verdi, 8.
Assago Milano
20090
Italien

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