I will be attending the Royal Society Meeting on New trends in evolutionary biology: biological, philosophical and social science perspectives. I'll post each of the abstracts and ask for your help in deciding what question to pose to the speakers. Here's the abstract for Agustín Fuentes' talk on
Human niche, human behaviour, human nature.
Scholars from a diverse range of disciplines disagree on what human nature is, what it could be, or even if there is one. There is no single ‘best’ discourse on, or mode of approach to, human nature. However, in the context of what we know about the evolutionary history, anthropology, and biology of Homo sapiens sapiens it is clear that an evolutionary approach should be among the principal modes of inquiry. At present we are faced with a few different narratives as to exactly what such an evolutionary approach entails. However, one point is clear: we need a robust and dynamic theoretical toolkit in order to develop a richer, and more nuanced, understanding of the cognitively sophisticated genus Homo and the diverse sorts of niches humans constructed and occupied across the Pleistocene, Holocene, and into the Anthropocene. In this talk I review current evolutionary approaches to ‘human nature’ and argue that we benefit from re-framing our investigations via the concept of the human niche and in the context of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES). In providing an overview of human evolution and the human niche I illustrate the benefits of moving the discourse on human nature(s) to an integrated evolutionary approach incorporating processes of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. This is not a replacement of earlier evolutionary approaches but rather an expansion and enhancement, a broadening of our toolkit and the landscape of inquiry. I offer brief examples from human evolutionary histories in support of these assertions.
1 comment :
Writing a phrase paper or essay on politics is not an easy task. For, the matter is full of turns and twists. Though it looks to be constrained to the rhetoric of political leaders, the actual scope of politics is significantly reaching. As a result, composing an effective phrase paper on politics needs a great deal of background study and difficult work. In reality, you want to put in a lot of effort correct from the time of choosing upon the subject of your research paper. And, the stage of focus ought to remain higher even right after you have drawn the conclusion at procustomwriting.com. For, you need to revise and proofread your research paper on politics to make it flawless.
Post a Comment