Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Why We Do It: Rethinking Sex and the Selfish Gene by Niles Eldredge ISBN: 0-393-05082-3 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: May, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Economics and Sex: A Closer Look at Selfish Genes
Comment: It is about time someone stood up for the use of solid data to back up "scientific" claims about the human psyche. Niles Eldredge has now written, I think, a nearly perfect rebuttal to the currently popular, but often undocumented, "selfish gene" view of human nature in his new book "Why we do it."
It is not true, and Eldredge does not claim, that humans are not animals. Indeed it has been known since at least the time of the early Greeks that humans were animals. This is thus not a new discovery, whatever the evolutionary psychologists may claim. It is, however, also true that we (and indeed all organisms) are more than the sum of our genes. Sure there is a "Human Nature." Sure we are not born with a "Blank Slate" personality, infinitely malleable. We are, however, more plastic in our behavior than the extreme "selfish gene" concept would allow. We have to have some plasticity in our behavior because we live in a complex society that requires cooperation. It seems to me that our ability to cooperate is thus as much a part of our nature as our "baser instincts." The question that scientists should ask is not whether murder, rape, thievery, and carnage characterize humans, but why most people do not participate in these antisocial activities!
Eldredge touches on many of these problems in his new book, especially in regard to sex and economics. By economics he means the functions (ingestion of food, drinking water, respiration, digestion, elimination of wastes and undigested food) that allow the organism to survive. Without survival there is no reproduction. In his characteristically clear prose he does a good job of demolishing the strict genetic determinist view of human behavior. Indeed, the so-called genetic determinists are not quite so deterministic in their real lives or in the details of their writing. So-called "blank slate" proponents are often equally closer to determinists than they or determinists would like to admit. Much of the hype about human nature being the determinant of every human action, or conversely nurture being paramount, comes from the popular press and the profit motive (ah- proof of human basic depravity!)
Actually I have quite a bit of respect for (although I don't always agree with) many researchers often lumped as evolutionary psychologists, sociobiologists, or ultra-Darwinists (as Eldredge characterizing them). Of these, works by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Daniel Dennett and John Alcock are especially worth reading. Again one has to be careful in characterizing individuals in one "school" of thought as being always in lockstep every other "member." My main gripe is that when some sociobiologists or evolutionary psychologists get carried away by their own rhetoric they will often resort to value-laden anthropomorphic prose (words do matter!), extrapolation beyond their data, and refusal to present valid counter arguments and evidence. Such works, whether based on right or left-leaning political perspectives are nothing more than polemics, and while far too common, have no valid place in science. Despite human failings, the goal of science should be to approach to the closest approximation of reality as possible. Darwin would be appalled by the lack of honest debate often shown in such works! In his "Origin of Species," Darwin summarized and answered (or admitted the apparent validity) of numerous criticisms of his theory.
An example of a spacious argument for a rather bestial human nature is the hypothesis that a tendency to rape is an adaptive feature of human males. I think Eldredge does an especially good job of demolishing this view, based on a critical review written by Frans de Waal. In fact, most rapes do not occur with reproduction in mind as many (if not most) rape victims are either above or below the age of reproduction. Also (although Eldredge does not mention it) many women die as a result of the attack (as the number of young women murdered over the last few years in Juarez testifies), especially in war time. If rape causes pregnancy the fetus is often aborted or the baby is put up for adoption, as noted by Eldredge. When criticized about the fact that rape is obviously currently maladaptive (many, but unfortunately not most, rapists wind up in jail), proponents fall back on the view that it must have evolved back in Pleistocene times, when it was adaptive! How this could ever be documented, short of inventing a time machine, is beyond me. However, as Eldredge points out studies on our close ape relatives and of modern hunter-gatherers does not support the hypothesis. Other rather tenuous arguments for "hard wired" behavioral tendencies have been made by Michael Ruse for wife beating and Stephan Pinker for infanticide.
What it all comes to is that, as near as I can see, humans are a complex weave of genetic and environmental influences that are nearly impossible to separate from each other. Because of this I trust the "expert" no more than I trust religious fanatics or fascists to make social policy.
It is perhaps my own bias that I prefer an indeterminate universe to a deterministic one, but I am willing to change my opinion if I am ever shown reasonable evidence that is unequivocal. Certainly Daniel Dennett has tried to make a convincing argument that free will can result from a deterministic system (he can have his cake and eat it too!). At least Dennett is aware of the problem and tries to solve it. However, I (for one) am not yet convinced and Niles Eldredge has, I think, published solid arguments as to why I probably will not be, at least any time soon.
Even if you disagree with him, read this book. For that matter, also read books by Dennett, Hrdy, Alcock, as well as E. O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, Steven Jay Gould, Ernst Mayr and Richard Lewontin if you are at all interested in the subject. Then make up your own mind!
Rating: 5
Summary: The Tide is Turning
Comment: 30 years from now, people will look back on the claims made by sociobiologists today and laugh. This book masterfully demonstrates why.
 |
Title: The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Creates the Complexities of Human Thought by Gary Marcus ISBN: 0465044050 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 16 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
 |
Title: A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science and Love by Richard Dawkins ISBN: 0618335404 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
 |
Title: DESCARTES' BABY: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human by Paul Bloom ISBN: 046500783X Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 13 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
 |
Title: Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain--And How It Changed the World by Carl Zimmer ISBN: 0743230388 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
 |
Title: Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe by S. Conway Morris, Simon Conway Morris ISBN: 0521827043 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
