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Article ID: CBB000740748

Powerful Intuitions: Re-reading Nature versus Nurture with Charles Darwin and Clifford Geertz (2007)

Harman, Oren Solomon (Author)

Science in Context
Volume: 20
Pages: 49--70
Publication date: 2007
Language: English

DOI: 10.1017/S026988970600113X

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Intuition Social evolution Nature and its relationship to culture; human-nature relationships Evolution Cultural anthropology Darwin, Charles Robert Geertz, Clifford James

Both the British naturalist Charles Darwin and the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz attempted explanations of the origin of variation: the former of the biological kind, the latter of the cultural kind. In so doing, both made claims that outstripped the evidence they possessed. But, in retrospect, in light of the history of the Nature versus Nurture debate, they nevertheless seem prescient, thereby possessing a kind of scientific intuition. By looking closely at these two intuitions, historically divided, but united by the concept of variation, this article argues that it is not always a bad thing to be either unaware or ignorant, that truths need not necessarily lead to other truths, and that one form of knowledge may be relevant to another, even when the second form is not consciously understood.

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Description “[A]rgues that it is not always a “bad” thing to be either unaware or ignorant, that truths need not necessarily lead to other truths, and that one form of knowledge may be relevant to another, even when the second form is not consciously understood.” (from the abstract)

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