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Representing a wide range of disciplines -- biology, sociology,
anthropology, economics, human ethology, psychology, primatology,
history, and philosophy of science -- the contributors to this book
recently spent a complete academic year at the Center for
Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) discussing a plethora of new
insights in reference to human cultural evolution. These scholars
acted as a living experiment of "interdisciplinarity in vivo." The
assumption of this experiment was that the scholars -- while
working and residing at the ZiF -- would be united intellectually
as well as socially, a connection that might eventually enhance
future interdisciplinary communication even after the research
group had dispersed. An important consensus emerged: The issue of
human culture poses a challenge to the division of the world into
the realms of the "natural" and the "cultural" and hence, to the
disciplinary division of scientific labor. The appropriate place
for the study of human culture, in this group's view, is located
between biology and the social sciences. Explicitly avoiding
biological and sociological reductionisms, the group adopted a
pluralistic perspective -- "integrative pluralism" -- that took
into account both today's highly specialized and effective
(sub-)disciplinary research and the possibility of integrating the
respective findings on a case-by-case basis. Each sub-group
discovered its own way of interdisciplinary collaboration and
submitted a contribution to the present volume reflecting one of
several types of fruitful cooperation, such as a fully integrated
chapter, a multidisciplinary overview, or a discussion between
different approaches. A promising first step on the long road to an
interdisciplinarily informed understanding of human culture, this
book will be of interest to social scientists and biologists alike.
Representing a wide range of disciplines -- biology, sociology,
anthropology, economics, human ethology, psychology, primatology,
history, and philosophy of science -- the contributors to this book
recently spent a complete academic year at the Center for
Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) discussing a plethora of new
insights in reference to human cultural evolution. These scholars
acted as a living experiment of "interdisciplinarity "in vivo.""
The assumption of this experiment was that the scholars -- while
working and residing at the ZiF -- would be united intellectually
as well as socially, a connection that might eventually enhance
future interdisciplinary communication even after the research
group had dispersed.
An important consensus emerged: The issue of human culture poses a
challenge to the division of the world into the realms of the
"natural" and the "cultural" and hence, to the disciplinary
division of scientific labor. The appropriate place for the study
of human culture, in this group's view, is located "between biology
and the social sciences."
Explicitly avoiding biological and sociological reductionisms, the
group adopted a pluralistic perspective -- "integrative pluralism"
-- that took into account both today's highly specialized and
effective (sub-)disciplinary research and the possibility of
integrating the respective findings on a case-by-case basis. Each
sub-group discovered its own way of interdisciplinary collaboration
and submitted a contribution to the present volume reflecting one
of several types of fruitful cooperation, such as a fully
integrated chapter, a multidisciplinary overview, or a discussion
between different approaches. A promising first step on the long
road to an interdisciplinarily informed understanding of human
culture, this book will be of interest to social scientists and
biologists alike.
Humans are a striking anomaly in the natural world. While we are
similar to other mammals in many ways, our behavior sets us apart.
Our unparalleled ability to adapt has allowed us to occupy
virtually every habitat on earth using an incredible variety of
tools and subsistence techniques. Our societies are larger, more
complex, and more cooperative than any other mammal's. In this
stunning exploration of human adaptation, Peter J. Richerson and
Robert Boyd argue that only a Darwinian theory of cultural
evolution can explain these unique characteristics.
"Not by Genes Alone" offers a radical interpretation of human
evolution, arguing that our ecological dominance and our singular
social systems stem from a psychology uniquely adapted to create
complex culture. Richerson and Boyd illustrate here that culture is
neither superorganic nor the handmaiden of the genes. Rather, it is
essential to human adaptation, as much a part of human biology as
bipedal locomotion. Drawing on work in the fields of anthropology,
political science, sociology, and economics--and building their
case with such fascinating examples as kayaks, corporations, clever
knots, and yams that require twelve men to carry them--Richerson
and Boyd convincingly demonstrate that culture and biology are
inextricably linked, and they show us how to think about their
interaction in a way that yields a richer understanding of human
nature.
In abandoning the nature-versus-nurture debate as fundamentally
misconceived, "Not by Genes Alone" is a truly original and
groundbreaking theory of the role of culture in evolution and a
book to be reckoned with for generations to come.
"I continue to be surprised by the number ofeducated people (many
of them biologists) who think that offering explanations for human
behavior in terms of culture somehow disproves the suggestion that
human behavior can be explained in Darwinian evolutionary terms.
Fortunately, we now have a book to which they may be directed for
enlightenment . . . . It is a book full of good sense and the kinds
of intellectual rigor and clarity of writing that we have come to
expect from the Boyd/Richerson stable."--Robin Dunbar, "Nature
"""Not by Genes Alone" is a valuable and very readable synthesis of
a still embryonic but very important subject straddling the
sciences and humanities."--E. O. Wilson, Harvard University
Over the past 25 years, Boyd and Richerson have become well-known
across a wide range of disciplines for their path-breaking work on
evolution and culture. This work collects twenty of the influential
but relatively inaccessible published articels that form the
backbone of this research. It could not be more timely given the
growing influence of evolutionary psychology. The papers - which
were published in a diverse set of journals and which are not
easily available - a conceptually linked and form a cohesive,
unified evolutionary account of human culture. Their
interdisciplinary research is based on two notions. First, that
culture is crucial for understanding human behavior: unlike other
organism, socially transmitted beliefs, attitudes and values
heavily influence our behavior. Secondly, culture is part of
biology: the capacity to acquire and transmit culture is a derived
component of human psychology, and the contents of culture are
deeply intertwined with our biology. Taking off from these two
assumptions, Boyd and Richerson's novel idea is that culture is a
pool of information, stored in the brains of a population, that
gets transmitted from one brain to another by social learning
processes. Among their conclusions: culture can account for both
our astounding ecological success as well as the maladaptations
that characterize much of human behavior. Interest in Boyd and
Richerson's work spans anthropology, psychology, economics,
philosophy, and political science, and has influenced work on
animal behavior, economics and game theory, memes, and even
archaeology.
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