Thesis ID: CBB416193584

The Blank(Ish) Slate: Biology's Return to Analyses of Human Affairs (2017)

unapi

Intellectuals today frequently incorporate biology into their analyses of human affairs. The fact that they do so is rarely acknowledged, much less questioned. However, when one learns the history of the relationship between biology and the social sciences, today’s casual use of, and often dependence on, biological factors becomes a mystery. In the early 1900s thinkers of all stripes looked to biology—specifically the evolution of human beings—for guidance. Then, after the horrors of the holocaust became clear, Western society rejected the notion of innate biological differences between people and championed instead the paradigm of behaviorism, or the notion that all human beings are “blank slates” upon which culture scripts its values and ideas. How, then, did it come to pass that biological thinking returned to analyses of humans? In this paper I argue that two evolutionary biologists, William Hamilton and Robert Trivers, relied upon the insights of population genetics to demonstrate the evolutionary logic of cooperation and sacrifice, and that in doing so they gave the emotional and political “green light” to reintroduce biology to various fields.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB416193584/

Similar Citations

Article Valles, Sean A.; (2012)
Lionel Penrose and the Concept of Normal Variation in Human Intelligence (/isis/citation/CBB001221611/)

Article Richard McMahon; (2020)
Resurecting raciology? Genetic ethnology and pre-1945 anthropological race classification (/isis/citation/CBB086533805/)

Article Reynolds, Andrew; (2007)
The Cell's Journey: From Metaphorical to Literal Factory (/isis/citation/CBB001021848/)

Essay Review James E. Strick; (2019)
Metaphors and Other Slippery Creatures (/isis/citation/CBB684419484/)

Article Schönfeld, Martin; (2006)
Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences (/isis/citation/CBB000720088/)

Book Müller-Wille, Staffan; Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg; (2012)
A Cultural History of Heredity (/isis/citation/CBB001251195/)

Book Hamilton, William Donald; (1996)
Evolution of Social Behaviour (/isis/citation/CBB000320537/)

Thesis Radin, Joanna M.; (2012)
Life on Ice: Frozen Blood and Biological Variation in a Genomic Age, 1950--2010 (/isis/citation/CBB001560842/)

Essay Review Green, Richard F.; (2000)
The Work of W. D. Hamilton (/isis/citation/CBB000110305/)

Article Glick, Thomas F.; (2008)
O Programa Brasileiro de genética evolucionária de populações, de Theodosius Dobzhansky (/isis/citation/CBB001035151/)

Article Pallitto, Nahuel; Folguera, Guillermo; (2012)
Cambios y continuidades: la ecología del comportamiento y su relación con la síntesis biológica extendida (/isis/citation/CBB001212026/)

Article Griesemer, James R.; Wade, Michael J.; (2000)
Populational Heritability: Extending Punnett Square Concepts to Evolution at the Metapopulation Level (/isis/citation/CBB000111902/)

Chapter Thompson, Paul; (2000)
“Organization,” “Population,” and Mayr's Rejection of Essentialism in Biology (/isis/citation/CBB000410688/)

Article Efstathiou, Sophia; (2012)
The Nazi Cosmetic: Medicine in the Service of Beauty (/isis/citation/CBB001211289/)

Article Gower, John; (2008)
The Biological Stimulus to Multidimensional Data Analysis (/isis/citation/CBB001021404/)

Book Creath, Richard; Maienschein, Jane; (2000)
Biology and epistemology (/isis/citation/CBB000110573/)

Essay Review Palladino, Paolo; (2013)
Biopolitics Between History and Philosophy (/isis/citation/CBB001566823/)

Authors & Contributors
Emanuele Coco
Grodwohl, Jean-Baptiste
Wade, Michael J.
Valles, Sean A.
Thompson, Paul
Strick, James E.
Concepts
Biology
Population genetics
Evolution
Genetics
Eugenics
Philosophy of biology
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
19th century
20th century, late
Places
Brazil
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment