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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 of educated 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
In this brief text, two leaders of the Teaching Sociology movement encourage students’ development of their sociological imaginations through role-taking. Assuming the role of a child living in poverty in India or of a member of an African tribe, students learn to re-envision their global society. An innovative, integrated framework provides core sociological concepts, while features such as Contributing to Our Social World enable students to “do” public sociology. Our Social World: Condensed Version presents the perspective of students living in the larger global world.
Renowned for its international coverage and rigorous selection procedures, this series provides the most comprehensive and scholarly bibliographic service available in the social sciences. Arranged by topic and indexed by author, subject and place-name, each bibliography lists and annotates the most important works published in its field during the year of 1997, including hard-to-locate journal articles. Each volume also includes a complete list of the periodicals consulted.
Our Social World: Condensed, by Jeanne H. Ballantine, Keith A. Roberts, and Kathleen Odell Korgen, inspires you to develop your sociological imaginations, to see the world and personal events from a new perspective, and to confront sociological issues on a day-to-day basis. The award-winning author team organizes the text around the "Social World" model, a conceptual framework that demonstrates the relationships among individuals (the micro level); organizations, institutions, and subcultures (the meso level); and societies and global structures (the macro level). The use of the Social World Model across chapters (represented in a visual diagram in the chapter openers) helps you to develop the practice of using three levels of analysis, and to view sociology as an integrated whole, rather than a set of discrete subjects. The Condensed version is adapted from Our Social World: Introduction to Sociology. The Sixth Edition of the Condensed version is made approximately 30% shorter than the full edition by removing selected boxes, editing the main narrative, and combining four chapters into two (Family/Education, and Politics/Economics).
Recently, evolutionary theories of economic and technological change have attracted a considerable amount of attention which reflects the problems encountered by mainstream analysis of dynamic phenomena and quantitative change. This book, originally published in 1991, develops the debate and draws on the concepts of evolutionary biology, nonequilibrium thermodynamics, systems and organization theory. While recognizing that new technology is not the cause of quantitative change, the editors claim it should play a more central role in economic theory and policy. At the same time, the ground is laid for a more generalized concept of innovation and experimentation and their relation to routine activities. The book is intended for economists.
This book examines why individuals and communities invest heavily in their religious life through multi-disciplinary perspectives. It pursues philosophical, psychological, deep time historical and adaptive answers to this question. Religion is a profoundly puzzling phenomenon from an evolutionary perspective. Commitment to religions are typically expensive, and most of the beliefs that motivate them cannot be true (since religious belief systems are inconsistent with one another). Yet some form of religion seems to be universal and resilient in historically known cultures – though not, if archaeology is to be trusted, in human communities early in the evolution of our species. We have collectively invented religion over about the last 100,000 years. Stemming from an interdisciplinary workshop, this book grapples with these challenges and features diverse contributions: some offer evolutionary and historical analyses, identifying hidden adaptive benefits to religion independent of the veracity of religious belief. Others see connections between religious commitment and commitment to the social norms that make cooperative life possible and explore aspects of human psychology that make religious belief tempting. Broad in scope and theoretically ambitious, Religion and Its Evolution: Signals, Norms and Secret Histories will be a key resource for scholars and researchers of religious studies, sciences of religion, psychology, anthropology, the cultural evolution of religion and the sociology of religion. This book was originally published as a special issue of Religion, Brain & Behavior.
"This text is intended for a one-semester introductory course."--Page 1.