Sociobiology

Changes in the expression of isoenzymes, peptides and nerve cells of T. angustula and T. fiebrigi stingless bees were evaluated after in vitro contamination with Sanson® 40SC (nicosulfuron) and 200 Gramoxone® (paraquat) herbicides, and also the use of such bees as bioindicators of the presence of pesticides. After contamination, analyses of changes in expression of isoenzymes esterases (EST), malate dehydrogenase (MDH), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and nerve cells employing CEC (critical electrolyte concentration) were conducted. The herbicide nicosulfuron causes partial inhibition of esterases from T. angustula and T. fiebrigi. The herbicide paraquat promotes total inhibition of esterase activity in T. fiebrigi from the concentration of 1%, and in concentrations of 10% and 100% in T. angustula. The superoxide dismutase isoenzymes showed an increase in their relative activity after contamination with paraquat at 10% and 100% in both species. No changes were observed for MDH and peptid...

Nature's Oracle. The life and work of W.D. Hamilton is the first thorough biography of William Donald Hamilton, the intellectual father of Sociobiology and the scientist who contributed to our understanding of the evolution of sex, host-parasite relations, mate choice and senescence. Right from the title, the book portrays Bill Hamilton as an oracle of nature, a "scientific hero" (364), the "Indiana Jones of evolutionary biology" (367). The most revealing as well as the most problematic aspects of Ullica Segerstrale's work for Oxford University Press lie in this oracular depiction of Bill Hamilton' life and work.

Paradoxically, there is a demand for both risk and insurance. Markowitz (Markowitz, H., 1952. The utility of wealth. Journal of Political Economy 60, 151–158) laid the foundation for an explanation to this paradox. Markowitz challenged future researchers to build upon his foundation an operational specification of the taste for wealth. This paper addresses the Markowitz challenge by building social context variables into his model of individual utility. Verifiable implications about gambling, insuring, and peer selection are derived from the ...

This meta-analysis surveyed 177 usable sources that reported data on gender differences on 21 different measures of sexual attitudes and behaviors. The largest gender difference was in incidence of masturbation: Men had the greater incidence (d = .96). There was also a large gender difference in attitudes toward casual sex: Males had considerably more permissive attitudes (d = .81). There were no gender differences in attitudes toward homosexuality or in sexual satisfaction. Most other gender differences were in the small-to-moderate range. Gender differences narrowed from the 1960s to the 1980s for many variables. Chodorow's neoanalytic theory, sociobiology, social learning theory, social role theory, and script theory are discussed in relation to these findings.

Moral objectivism based on a metaphysical dualism is no longer tenable. In his "Expanding Circle" Peter Singer argued for a moral objectivism based on "reason', but perfectly rational agents disagree on morality all the time. There are at least 5 reason for a moral subjectivism. Nevertheless we can often discuss moral claims in a quasi-objective fashion, simply because they often refer to mutual or shared interests. Based on a conference paper presented in 1991 in Liblice before the European Sociobiological Society.

The Relationship between Biological and Cultural Evolution Sociobiology has made good progress with tile explanation of animal social behaviour and social organization but has not so far made much progress with the understanding of human cultural activities. Conventionally, such activities are explained without reference to biological processes such as natural selection, survival, or inclusive fitness. This occurs, for instance, in social anthropology and sociology. Indeed, we need to recognize that there are major differences between the constituents of human cultures and of non-human social life, and also between the mechanisms by which those constituents come to achieve social coordination. Kinship systems provide one example. Such differences should not blind us to the fact that many facets of human cultural activity are ecologically adaptive. Economic anthropologists have long recognized this, but it is possible to extend the argument further than they have done, to bring in considerations of individual survival and reproductive success. Himalayan polyandry, together with its validating mythology, can he interpreted as a strategy by which inhospitable country is successfully exploited. The fact that human cultures can, like phenotypes of a physical kind, be seen, ultimately, as the outcome ofnatural selection, should not lead to the error ofconcluding that cultural rules are themselves extensions of'underlying neural characteristics of the human brain. Cultures are the outcomes of conscious human thinking, and their structure is related to the logic of this thinking, not inherited neural structures. Evidence indicates that, depending on ecological circumstances, cultures either pursue a strategy of fast or slow reproduction, and this is interpreted as the result of cultural evolution, or, more precisely, the success or Failure of individual decisions over time.

If there is one thing that history has shown us, its that the belief in free will as a product of existence has led to delusion. We attach some form of "the self" to our actions, not realizing the magnitude of the external factors in play. The english pre-Darwin evolutionists believed that the goal of evolution was literally "the englishman" until Darwin presented his theory of natural selection, showing them that they are just a product of natural selection that does not have a telos or set goal. Criticisms of Darwin appeared due to the somewhat nihilistic implications that the theory of natural selection provides.

RESUMO: A elaboração de um plano de amostragem é fundamental em programas de manejo integrado de pragas em reflorestamentos. Para isso, é necessário a determinação da distribuição espacial desses organismos, pois torna o processo de tomada de decisão mais preciso por considerar as variações locais e regionais da distribuição da praga durante o monitoramento. Com este trabalho objetivou-se avaliar a distribuição espacial dos sauveiros em florestas plantadas com eucalipto no município de Bocaiúva, Minas Gerais. Foram utilizados doze talhões de eucalipto, pertencentes a V&M Florestal Ltda, que foram subdivididos em parcelas de 6 m x 20 m, totalizando parcelas de 120 m 2. Em cada parcela, os formigueiros foram identificados, contados e medidos. Para determinar o tipo de distribuição espacial dos formigueiros, calcularam-se as freqüências observada e esperada dos formigueiros, segundo o modelo de distribuição de Poisson. Não houve diferença entre as freqüências observada e esperada (χ 2 ; p>0,01), resultando em uma distribuição ao acaso.

Thilo Sarrazin - Der wissenschaftliche Paradigmenwechsel hinter seinen Sachargumten

Dieser Aufsatz von Andreas Vonderach umreißt in einer Dichte wie bislang kein zweiter bekannter deutschsprachiger Aufsatz den wissenschaftlichen Paradigmenwechsel, der hinter den naturwissenschaftlichen Sachargumenten von Thilo Sarrazin steht, und für den ich selbst in dem Manuskript "200.000 Jahre Humanevolution" (siehe nächstes "Paper") viel Literatur zusammengestellt habe. (Mit dieser Literaturliste habe ich auch Andreas Vonderach manche Anregung geben können.)

Dieser Aufsatz des Anthropologen Andreas Vonderach, M.A., wird hier - mit Erlaubnis des Autors und des Herausgebers - veröffentlicht, um ihn im Netz verfügbar zu machen.

Ich selbst habe mich zwar mit dem Autor seit unseren gemeinsamen Studienjahren am Anthropologischen Institut der Universität Mainz, wo wir uns kennengelernt haben, über solche wissenschaftlichen Themen ausgetauscht, kann mich aber (leider!!!) nicht als Koautor dieses Aufsatzes bezeichnen.

Sobald er von seiner Zeitschrift selbst im Netz freigeschaltet worden ist, werde ich ihn hier wieder löschen.

Solche Aufsätze sollten jetzt eigentlich in der FAZ, in der Zeit, im Focus oder im Spiegel erscheinen, um die von Thilo Sarrazin angestoßene wissenschaftliche Sachdebatte weiter fortführen zu können. Der Focus hat dieses Thema übrigens auch schon ausführlicher behandelt,

http://www.focus.de/gesundheit/ratgeber/zukunftsmedizin/visionen/rassen/ethnische-medizin_aid_19369.html

ebenso die beiden anderen Zeitungen. Weiteres zu all dem auch auf meinem Blog

http://studgenpol.blogspot.com

Anthropologists, indeed, regard woman as intermediate in development between the child and the man. (Thomas 1897: 40) [D]ifference in natural ability is, in the main, a characteristic of the individual, not of race or of sex. (Thomas 1907: 438) In this article, I would like to trace William I. Thomas's changing views on the explanatory role of biology for sociology and social psychology. From the beginning, Thomas studied numerous subjects that involved both biological and sociological factors. He wrote on the nature of the sexes, race, instincts, prejudices, and evolution. As I will attempt to show, his starting point was the simple biologism with which he was familiar and which consisted mainly in transferring the theoretical structures of biology to sociology. Obviously, this understanding of biologism is completely obsolete today. Yet his view of biology's role subsequently began to shift towards what is currently the most popular approach, involving the assimilation of data interpreted in strictly sociological theoretical categories. This article is not a holistic review of Thomas's work in terms of his beliefs about the role of biology but rather describes a key moment in the qualitative change of approach that took place in the first years of the twentieth century. I will start with a brief outline of the biological topics that most affected sociology as it emerged and of modern methods of combining biology and sociology. Next, I will compare the earlier and later role of biology in Thomas's sociology.

Moral agency is a central feature of both religious and secular conceptions of human beings. In this paper I outline a scientific naturalistic model of moral agency making use of current findings and theories in sociobiology, developmental psychology, and social cognitive theory. The model provides answers to four central questions about moral agency: (1) what it is, (2) how it is acquired, (3) how it is put to work, and (4) how it is justified. I suggest that this model can provide religious and secular moral theories with a basis for a common understanding of moral agency.

Social wasps participate in food webs, act as biological control agents in small crops and the natural environment, and act as potential pollinators. The objective of this study was to carry out an inventory of social wasps in five phytophysiognomies with different degrees of anthropogenic disturbance in São Paulo, Brazil. The collections were performed by active search and attractive traps to survey social wasps. We collected wasp for one year with collection campaigns every other month totaling six campaigns for site. We collected a total of 913 individuals representing 31 species and eight genera. The species with the highest abundances were Agelaia pallipes and Agelaia vicina. The highest richness of social wasps was found in the riparian forest and regenerating Cerrado. We conclude that social wasp richness and diversity varies according to habitat vegetation characteristics and that these effects are likely mediated by resulting differences in the provision of resources and ne...

The objective of this research was to estimate level of economic damage for leaf-cutting ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Eucalyptus plantations, because it represents an important tool for integrated management of these pests. Data from the continue forest inventory of Eucalyptus plantation of the V & M Florestal, in the Municipality of João Pinheiro, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil from 1991 to 1996 were correlated with those of control costs of monitoring leaf-cutting ants in this area and period. Data of each stand of Eucalyptus were arranged in spreadsheets and statistically analyzed. Reduction in wood production per unitary increment of number of leaf-cutting ant nests per hectare was 0.87% for all Eucalyptus species; 0.68% for Eucalyptus camaldulensis; 3.26% for Eucalyptus citriodora; and 1.78% for Eucalyptus tereticornis. Wood production in stands of Eucalyptus cloeziana and Eucalyptus urophylla were not affected by density of nests of leafcutting ants. On the other hand, leaf-cutting ants negatively affected wood production in stands of other Eucalyptus species.

Για την Ανθρώπινη Φύση Μετάφραση Αιμιλία Ναθαναήλ Εκδόσεις «Λέξημα», τώρα «Σύναλμα» Αθήνα 1997, σελίδες 256. Edward O. Wilson -Σύναλμα Μετάφραση Σπύρος Σφενδουράκης Εκδόσεις «Σύναλμα» Αθήνα 1999, σελίδες 488. Βιβλιοπαρουσίαση δημοσιευμένη στο Περιοδικό «Επίκεντρα», τεύχος 3, Noέμβριος 1999, σελ. 62-65 Ο Ε. Ο. Wilson (1929-) είναι βιολόγος, με ειδίκευση στην εντομολογία, καθηγητής στο Harvard μέχρι το 1997. Το περιοδικό Time (17/6/96) τον θεωρεί ως μία από τις 25 προσωπικότητες που έχουν τη μεγαλύτερη επιρροή στις Η.Π.Α. Η αφοσίωση του στην παράδοση της εξελικτικής βιολογίας δεν τον εμπόδισε να προσλάβει βαθύτατη γνώση των κοινωνικών επιστημών και των ανθρωπιστικών σπουδών. Το μεγαλεπήβολο έργο που ανέλαβε από τις αρχές της δεκαετίας του 1970 που, όπως θα δούμε παρακάτω, πατάει απ' τη μια στις θετικές επιστήμες (κυρίως τη βιολογία) και από την άλλη στις κοινωνικές και ανθρωπιστικές, δεν φαίνεται υπερβολικό για την παιδεία του και την ευελιξία που επιδεικνύει όταν κινείται σε ετερογενείς επιστημονικούς χώρους. Μελετώντας το βιολογικό κόσμο ο Wilson έφτασε στο συμπέρασμα ότι όπως τα ζώα, είτε ως μονάδες είτε ως «κοινωνίες», προκαθορίζονται από τα βιολογικά δεδομένα της ύπαρξης τους, έτσι και οι άνθρωποι ως άτομα αλλά και ο πολιτισμός τους κινείται στα όρια που θέτει η υλική -οργανική τους υπόσταση. Σε καμιά περίπτωση εδώ δεν υπονοείται άλλος ένας μονοδιάστατος βιολογικός ντετερμινισμός αλλά μία περιορισμένη εντός πλαισίων («επιγενετικοί κανόνες») ελευθερία κινήσεων. Απ' τη στιγμή αυτή ανοίχθηκαν μπροστά στο συγγραφέα τρείς ερευνητικοί τομείςπροκλήσεις: 1. Η επίδραση της βιολογικής πραγματικότητας στη δομή και λειτουργία των ανθρωπίνων κοινωνιών. 2. Οι βιολογικές συνιστώσες της ανθρώπινης συμπεριφοράς. Κατά πόσο μπορούμε να ανασυνθέσουμε μια «ανθρώπινη φύση» λαμβάνοντας υπ' όψιν αφ' ενός τις

The changing fate of group selection theory illustrates nicely the importance of studying the history of science. It was Charles Darwin that first used something like group selection to explain how natural selection could give rise to altruistic behavior and moral instinct. These instincts could be accommodated by his theory of evolution, he argued, if they had evolved 'for the good of the community'. By the 1960s, group selection had a new and vocal advocate in V.C. Wynne-Edwards. But this gave critics of the theory that selection might act on groups, rather than at the level of individuals or genes, a definable target, and from the mid-1960s to the 1980s group selection was considered the archetypal example of flawed evolutionary thinking. However, at the end of the 20th century ideas of group selection re-emerged as an important component of a multilevel theory of evolution.

The current geological epoch has been dubbed the Anthropocene-the age of humans. We argue that the roots of the Anthropocene lie in the agricultural revolution that began some 8000 years ago. Unique human psychological and cultural characteristics were present in our distant hunter-gatherer past, but in terms of the biophysical impact of our species, agricultural represented an unequivocal and decisive evolutionary break. With the transition to agriculture human society began to function as a superorganism functioning as a single unit designed by social natural selection to produce economic surplus. Where environmental conditions were permitted, early human agricultural societies followed the same pattern as a few social insects and exhibited explosive population growth, complex and detailed division of labor, intensive resource exploitation, territorial expansion, and a social organization favoring the survival and growth of the supergroup over the well-being of individuals within the group. Similar economic forces lie behind ultrasociality in social insects and humans-increased productivity from the division of labor, increasing returns to scale, and the exploitation of stocks of productive resources. Exploring the evolutionary mechanisms behind ultrasociality offers insights into the growth imperative that threatens the stability of the earth's life support systems.

In social insect colonies, queen-produced pheromones have important functions in social regulation.
These substances influence the behavior and physiology of colony members. A queen-produced volatile
that inhibits differentiation of new neotenic reproductives was recently identified in the lower termite
Reticulitermes speratus. However, there are no known queen-specific volatiles of this type in any other
termite species. Here, we report volatile compounds emitted by live queens of the higher termite
Nasutitermes takasagoensis. We used headspace gas chromatography mass spectroscopy (HS GC–MS) to
analyze volatiles emitted by live primary queens, workers, soldiers, alates, and eggs collected in a
Japanese subtropical forest. Among 14 detected compounds, 7 were soldier-specific, 1 was alate-specific,
1 was egg-specific, and 1 was queen-specific. The queen-specific volatile was phenylethanol, which is
different than the compound identified in R. speratus. The identification of this queen-specific volatile is
the first step in determining its functions in higher termite social regulation. Comparisons of queen
pheromone substances regulating caste differentiation among various termite taxa will contribute to a
better understanding of the evolution of social systems in termites.

North begins his book by stating that "institutions are the rules of the game in a society or, more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction."(3) That being said North then proposes to examine institutions, changes in them, and their impact on economic performance over time.

North begins his book by stating that "institutions are the rules of the game in a society or, more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction."(3) That being said North then proposes to examine institutions, changes in them, and their impact on economic performance over time.

My husband and I have been faithfully married for years, and we are shocked by what we read in your columns. As black vultures, we engage in none of the revolting practices you advocate so regularly, and we don't think anyone else should either. We suggest you champion fidelity or shut up.

Were Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” to have a colon after ‘Delusion’, followed by the author’s name, it would at least have a certain self-irony (i.e. Dawkins being a delusion of God). As it stands however, Dawkins’ book can only be taken as brute stupidity put on display for the world. 

For someone with an appreciation for the ironic, though, the book is full of amusing aspects ...

In realist theories of international relations, human nature is standardly classified as one of the three causes of war. In Kenneth Waltz’s famous tripartite distinction, human nature’s propensity to evil is catalogued as a first-image cause of war. However, Waltz himself seems to quickly dismiss first-image explanations of war as scientifically unreliable due to human nature’s complexity and inscrutability. Customarily, human nature explanations of conflict are criticised for resting on metaphysical assumptions and apriori pessimism. This paper argues that standard realist conceptions about the inherent evilness of human nature or, equally, reductionist sociobiological accounts of its hard-wired conflict-proneness are impoverished secularised versions of Christian anthropological assumptions grounded on the doctrine of original sin. Itself a widely contested dogma, in its Augustinian formulation original sin was linked to a soteriological perspective, that is, a defence of its status as a corollary to the doctrine that all human beings are equally in need of salvation in Christ. However, its use was never entirely disconnected from purposes of theodicy and Christian apologetics striving to reconcile the coexistence of a benevolent and omnipotent God with the existence of evil and suffering in the world.

It is this latter legacy -associated with the explanation of suffering and evil in the world but stripped of its eschatological content- that pervades secularist theorisations of human nature. Prominent part in this semantic transfiguration is played by a post-Augustinian understanding of human nature as the repository of passions, drives and vices that need to be tamed by an imposing human will representing the source of human personhood. As a result natural human emotions and passions such as pain and suffering or the human condition itself, finitude and mortality, were seen as evil or punishment resulting from sin. With the eclipse of the eschatological dimension, human nature was gradually reduced to its physical, naturalistic aspects, equated with aggressive drives and eventually autonomised as a causal explanation of conflict and human suffering. Initially conceived as a meditation on the paradox of evil and human responsibility, original sin ended up signifying man’s inherent wickedness. This paper argues that even though the doctrine’s ambiguity permitted its naturalisation, the paradox at its heart reveals the structure of hope within human experience. International Relations will only hold impoverished notions of the role of human nature in international politics should it go on neglecting the complexity of a doctrine that was far from offering a reductionist vision of the human condition.

ABSTRACT. Working out  reliable scientific – not ideologically-biased -  model of social evolution, defining the criteria for Natural Selection any any level of  complexity or Universal Darwinism, and  sociobiology theoretical  rethinking therefore

Moffett surveys a wide literature on human and non-human society and produces a useful synthesis of the literature. While written for general readers, this book will repay academic specialists of various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Moffett is interested in what constitutes society: how do we differentiate between insiders and outsiders? He surveys the animal world and the follows the insider/outsider distinction in the evolution of human societies from hunter-gatherer groups to the current day.

The Ape That Understood the Universe is the story of the strangest animal in the world: the human animal. It opens with a question: How would an alien scientist view our species? What would it make of our sex differences, our sexual behaviour, our child-rearing patterns, our moral codes, our religions, our languages, and science? The book tackles these questions by drawing on ideas from two major schools of thought: evolutionary psychology and cultural evolutionary theory. The guiding assumption is that humans are animals, and that like all animals, we evolved to pass on our genes. At some point, however, we also evolved the capacity for culture - and from that moment, culture began evolving in its own right. This transformed us from a mere ape into an ape capable of reshaping the planet, travelling to other worlds, and understanding the vast universe of which we’re but a tiny, fleeting fragment.

Reflecting on the recent book by Marina L. Butovskaya and Victoria V. Rostovtseva, the author discusses altruism and selfishness as preconditions for cooperation of humans in society for collective actions, as a result of which its sociocultural transformations take place. It is argued that the problem of sources of cooperative behavior is by no means the one of strict choice between altruism and selfishness. Cooperation in society is based on a combination of altruism and selfishness in human behavior, with reciprocity of relationships as a connecting link between them. Butovskaya and Rostovtseva’s approach to the problem of the sources of cooperation as the background of social evolution is compared with the theories for which this problem is crucially important, too but solved differently – the collective action theory and collective acceptance theory of institutions.

This article explores the possibility that romantic love is an attachment process-a biosocial process by which affectional bonds are formed between adult lovers, just as affectional bonds are formed earlier in life between human infants and their parents. Key components of attachment theory, developed by Bowlby, Ainsworth, and others to explain the development of attectional bonds in infancy, were translated into terms appropriate to adult romantic love. The translation centered on the three major styles of attachment in infancy-secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent-and on the notion that continuity of relationship style is due in part to mental models (Bowlby's "inner working models") of self and social life. These models, and hence a person's attachment style, are seen as determined in part by childhood relationships with parents. Two questionnaire studies indicated that (a) relative prevalence of the three attachment styles is roughly the same in adulthood as in infancy, (b) the three kinds of adults differ predictably in the way they experience romantic love, and (c) attachment style is related in theoretically meaningful ways to mental models of self and social relationships and to relationship experiences with parents. Implications for theories of romantic love are discussed, as are measurement problems and other issues related to future tests of the attachment perspective.

Stingless honey bees— commonly known as stingless bees— have long provided food and materials to the inhabitants of tropical America. We conducted a literature search to codify available information, including non-peer reviewed ‘grey literature’, on the purported value of stingless bees to indigenous people. Among >400 species of Neotropical stingless bees several are widely used in beekeeping. Varied cultural and economic values are associated with their use, and in some cases husbandry, as a consequence of ongoing contact between people and these social insects. Adapting new species to husbandry is being attempted in many countries. The bees remain culturally important, and beliefs associated with them are significant for different groups, beyond utilization as commodities. We find values in food, craft, religion and medicine, with cultural values ranging from utilitarian to mythological.Values transmitted across generations allow cohesion and communal identity of native organi...

Significant criticisms have emerged on the way that collective behaviours in team sports have been traditionally evaluated. A major recommendation has been for future research and practice to focus on the interpersonal relationships developed between team players during performance. Most research has typically investigated team game performance in subunits (attack or defence), rather than considering the interactions of performers within the whole team. In this paper, we offer the view that team performance analysis could benefit from the adoption of biological models used to explain how repeated interactions between grouping individuals scale to emergent social collective behaviours. We highlight the advantages of conceptualizing sports teams as functional integrated ‘super-organisms’ and discuss innovative measurement tools, which might be used to capture the superorganismic properties of sports teams. These tools are suitable for revealing the idiosyncratic collective behaviours underlying the cooperative and competitive tendencies of different sports teams, particularly their coordination of labour and the most frequent channels of communication and patterns of interaction between team players. The principles and tools presented here can serve as the basis for novel approaches and applications of performance analysis devoted to understanding sports teams as cohesive, functioning, high-order organisms exhibiting their own peculiar behavioural patterns.

Como fenômeno social, a guerra está subordinada à política, como defende Clausewitz, ou, ao contrário, é produto de uma "cultura guerreira" instintiva, comum a todos os povos e tempos e para além da política, como sugere Keegan? Devemos enfatizar "elementos históricos essenciais" na busca de um contínuo intertemporal para a guerra? Neste artigo, enfatizamos a relevância do postulado da "perenidade da guerra" e a impropriedade de uma dicotomia entre racionalidade política versus instintividade. Os resultados do choque entre essas duas correntes de pensamento sobre as origens da guerra enfrenta limitações devido à ausência de um "jogo de escalas" temporal, de modo que as abordagens de curta duração emergem como incompatíveis com visões macro-históricas. Sugerimos que uma compreensão profunda do fenômeno da guerra deve considerar a interação e a retroalimentação entre processos em diferentes escalas de tempo, do episódico ao evolucionário.

As a social phenomenon, is war subordinate to politics, as Clausewitz argues, or, instead, is it the product of an instinctive 'warrior culture', common to all peoples and times and beyond politics, as Keegan suggests? Should we emphasize 'essential historical elements' in the search for a temporal continuum in warfare? In this article, we stress the relevance of the 'perennity of war' thesis, and the impropriety of a dichotomy between political rationality vs. instinct. The results of the clash between these two strands of thought about the origins of warfare face limitations due to the absence of a temporal 'play of scales', so that short-term approaches emerge as incompatible with macro-historical views. We suggest that a deep understanding of the phenomenon of warfare must consider the interaction and the feedback between processes at different time scales.

Ahlâkın evrimsel kökeninin ahlâkî bilgi ve ahlâkî realizmi zayıflattığına ilişkin argümanlar ve bu argümanlara verilen yanıtlar, son on yıl içinde felsefecilerden büyük ilgi görmüşlerdir. Bu makale, öncelikle insanda ahlâkın evrimsel kökenine ilişkin sosyobiyoloji ve evrimsel psikoloji alanlarındaki bilimsel çalışmaları sunmaktadır. İkinci olarak, Sharon Street ve Richard Joyce’un 2006 yılında bu bilimsel çalışmalara dayanarak ortaya koydukları, ahlâkın evrimsel kökeninin ahlâkî bilgi ve ahlâkî realizmi zayıflattığı argümanlarını açıklamaktadır. Son olarak ise Street ve Joyce’un argümanları, çeşitli eleştiriler ışığında değerlendirilmektedir.

A Memética é, então, a ciência que estuda como memes se propagam. O que a genética faz com os genes, a Memética faz com os memes. Ou, mais precisamente, o que a genética de populações e a epidemiologia fazem com as informações genéticas, a Memética faz com as informações culturais. O ponto a ser discutido então é apenas se os modelos matemáticos aplicados na primeira podem também ser usados na segunda. Isso, é claro, levanta enormes problemas. Será que a cultura realmente pode ser dividida em unidades de informação? De que são feitos os memes? Como eles são passados? Como saber se eles foram realmente passados ou não? O que determina que um meme vai infectar a mente de uma pessoa e de outra não? Quem manda no meu comportamento sou eu ou meus memes? Eu posso escolher quais memes vão me infectar? Utilizar modelos biológicos para tratar a cultura não seria reducionista e mecanicista? [...] É com este espírito que o livro foi escrito. Mas, antes de tudo, é um livro de divulgação científica. Pretende dar ao leitor a fundamentação filosófica e científica para discutir os conceitos aqui tratados. Pode, então, ser lido por um não-filósofo que só sabe de biologia aquilo que aprendeu na escola

Following atrocities committed, at least partially, in the name of religion in recent times, it is not surprising that books expressing anxiety over the nature of religious faith have been blazing out of shelves. Starting with Sam Harris' The End of Faith in 2004, Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, and Christopher Hitchens' God is not Great have followed as powerful polemics that have attracted a lot of discussion on religion. While all four publications are worth a good discussion, Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion has probably attracted the most attention among them.

The area which stands inbetween Hungarian plains and the Mongolia Southern Siberia line has been named as “Eurasian Steppes”. Gumilev used the term of “Great Steppe” for the same area. Aforementioned region hosted many folks and tribal confederations like Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, Göktürks, Oghuzes, Kipchaks, Alans and Mongolians. Ethnic blossom process of those peoples, which is a result of various clashes and unifications, is crucial for the researches about “ethnogenesis”. Moreover, influence zone of this area goes further than Hungary-Mongolia line. Parts of Indian Subcontinent, Middle East, North Africa, Far East, Indochina and European continent was ruled by steppic originated dynasties and influenced from them culturally. Therefore, it is essential to know about Eurasian Steppes, for understanding World History in a holistic way. This research is concentrated on the cycles of ethnogenesis in Eurasian Steppes starting from prehistory, by using biology and genetics. Contemporary nations and ethnicities who have cultural, geographical and linguistic continuity with the steppic people also mostly have the genetic affinity with them, especially Turkic nations. This research uses
“sociobiology” concept of Edward O. Wilson in order to explain problems of social sciences and a multidisciplinary method has been applied by combining history, linguistics and genetics. Especially Y-DNA markers are used in this study, in order to show paternal continuity.

Author and historian Yuval Harari has foreseen a future where humans emerge as "self-made gods of planet Earth." Yet what may displace Homo Deus as the main mover in evolution? A prime candidate is a hybrid lifeform of greater scope. A new genus of superorganisms – Deus Narrans – will have an opportunity to engage actual and virtual beings across species lines in quests to co-evolve shared values, rather than advance a single genetic and memetic lineage. The art, technology and science endeavors arising from such new transspecies connectives may surpass in influence those of species-bound rivals. Exponential technologies will propel this transition. For eons, material scarcities prompted zero-sum rivalries among and between hominids and other species to reproduce at the expense of one another. As plenitude and longevity grow, new forms of non-zero sum interchange will arise among sentient beings. Evolution in a post-scarcity era will differ from earlier epochs by turning to the spread of lumenes -- replicable qualities of spirit (patterns of emotional response)-across species lines. New communication technologies and pattern languages can speed this shift. Technologies already are emerging for sentient beings to converse and share emotions among distantly-related animal and plant lifeforms. These tools will become central as evolution grows branchier. Genetic engineering and artificial intelligence soon will make Homo Sapiens the ancestor of myriad new cultures and species, many far surpassing our present capabilities. As a common ground for connecting sentient life forms, Deus Narrans can meet the need for spreading empathic resonances, understandings and collaboration among beings across species lines. The heart of such interactions may be a fractal system for co-creation in the realms of art, science, and technology. This paper maps how "social tetrahedrons" and “narrative fractals” can serve as interfaces through which sentient beings of all kinds can share experiences and create value at all scales in multiple realms. In the coming year, open source apps will begin testing such interfaces to bridge current cultural barriers in peer learning and online collaboration. If transcultural pilots succeed, they may set the stage for millions of humans – as well as individuals from new lifeforms to come – to explore, thrive, and co-evolve in relationships made possible by Deus Narrans.

I integrate evolutionary biology with ideas from the traditional humanist paradigm; critique poststructuralism and construct a biocultural alternative; critique many individual theorists (with the most extensive attention given to Derrida, Foucault, and Northrop Frye); and critique narrow forms of evolutionary psychology. Main constructive influences include Darwin and Huxley, ethologist Konrad Lorenz, developmental psychologist John Bowlby, and personality psychologist Hans Eysenck.

This article looks at the evolution of sex differences in sexuality in human beings, and asks whether evolutionary psychology sometimes exaggerates these differences. According to a common understanding of sexual selection theory, females in most species invest more than males in their offspring and, as a result, males compete for as many mates as possible, whereas females choose from among the competing males. The males-compete/females-choose (MCFC) model applies to many species, but is misleading when applied to human beings. This is because males in our species commonly contribute to the rearing of the young, which reduces the sex difference in parental investment. Consequently, sex differences in our species are relatively modest. Rather than males competing and female choosing, humans have a system of mutual courtship: Both sexes are choosy about long-term mates and both sexes compete for desirable mates. We call this the mutual mate choice (MMC) model. Although much of the evolutionary psychology literature is consistent with the MMC model, the traditional MCFC model exerts a strong influence on the field, distorting the emerging picture of the evolved sexual psychology of Homo sapiens. Specifically, it has led to the exaggeration of the magnitude of human sex differences, an overemphasis on men’s short-term mating inclinations, and a relative neglect of male mate choice and female mate competition. We advocate a stronger focus on the MMC model.

Mystery. It is the mystery that has brought us together. It is the mystery that has driven men to murder and conceit throughout the centuries. It is the mystery of our origins and our beliefs that we will unravel in this course.
Prehistoric human sociobiology (paleosociobiology) is the story of mankind as revealed through recent discoveries in human biology, ecology and mythohistory. Just as the sociobiology of birds is dominated by songs and migrations, the sociobiology of mankind is dominated by language and religion.

The purpose of this essay is to review some of the basic conceptual debates in nationalism studies under the broad and interrelated categories of ethnicity, nations and nationalism, and classification of nations and nationalism. The sheer volume of literature produced on these subjects, particularly since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, poses a major challenge, but the present selective focus using key and influential texts as examples should provide the reader with a solid foundation for further research. The essay has three sections, organized as follows. The first, on ethnicity, provides a brief history of the term and an overview of what is usually described as the debate between primordialist and instrumentalist accounts of ethnicity, but suggests that this characterization is misleading. Section two, on nations and nationalism, begins with a similar etymology before surveying the debate between modernist, perennialist, and ethno-symbolist conceptions of the nature of and relations between those two phenomena. Finally, the third section reviews the range of ways that nations and nationalism have been classified, including the now dominant distinction between civic and ethnic types.

This essay is part of the "Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration" section of the International Studies Association's "International Studies Encyclopedia" (www.isacompendium.com).

Bu tezin amacı, toplumsal olanı açıklama arzusundaki sosyobiyoloji disiplininin
genelde sosyal bilimlerle, özelde ise sosyolojiyle ilişkisini ele almak ve diğer canlı
türleri üzerinde yapılan biyolojik çalışmaların insan eylemlerini ve toplumsal
kurumları anlamak için yeterli ve uygun bir yöntemsel çerçeve sunup sunmadığını
araştırmaktır.
Edward Wilson sosyal eylemleri doğal seçilim baskısı ve türünü devam ettirme
mücadelesi olarak görüp biyolojiye indirgemektedir. Bu sebeple içgüdüsel
davranışlarla ilgilenerek türler ve kültürlerarası farklılıkları değil yalnızca
benzerlikleri gösterme eğilimindedir. Wilson toplumsal eylem üzerindeki kültür ve
çevre etkisinin sınırlı olacağını ve bu sınırlı etkinin de her koşulda türün biyolojik
kapasitesine ve özelliklerine bağlı kalacağını iddia etmiştir.
Her doğa bilimi disiplini gibi sosyobiyoloji de nesneler arası ilişkileri inceler ve
insanın ve diğer canlıların dışarıdan birer nesne olarak gözlemlenebilecek boyutlarını
ele alır. Natüralist (doğalcı) bir yaklaşıma sahiptir. Bir hayvan türünü ele alırken
kullandığı yöntem ile insanı incelerken başvurduğu yöntem arasında hiçbir fark
yoktur. Dolayısıyla insan türüne olan yaklaşımı da büyük oranda indirgemecidir. Doğa
bilimleri olgular arasındaki nedensellikleri bularak neden sonuç ilişkisini açıklamaya
çalışan bir yönteme sahiptir. Bu yöntemde nedensellik ilkeleri takip edilir ve
nesnelerde tek düzenlilik olduğu varsayılır. Yorumlayıcı yöntem savunucuları doğa
bilimlerinden farklı olarak sosyal bilimlerde aynı metodun kullanılamayacağını çünkü
elimizde tek düzenlilik ilkesini bozacak olan insan, toplum, kültür ve tarih gibi kendi
öznelliğine sahip bir araştırma nesnesinin olduğunu, araştırma nesnesinin bizzat kendi
çevresini anlamlandıran öznelerden oluştuğunu, kendi tekilliğine sahip olduğunu ve
deneye açık olmadıklarını söyleyerek doğa bilimlerine itiraz ederler.
Bu itirazdan hareketle çalışmamızda sosyobiyolojinin kökenini açıklamaya gayret
ettiği toplumsal eylem, olgu ve kurumları, örnekler üzerinden kendi yöntemleri
aracılığıyla nasıl incelediği ele alınmış, sosyobiyoloji ile sosyal bilimler arasındaki
yöntemsel farklar ortaya konulmuş ve bilhassa yorumlayıcı sosyolojinin metodolojik
olarak bunları açıklamaya daha elverişli olduğu sonucuna ulaşılmıştır.

The article gives an overview of the impact of Darwinism in the debate about "Nature: Nurture". It names the main tenets and arguments for and against using evolutionary knowledge in the studies of humans and gives 20 most important references.
Subchapters: 1. Nature and Nurture: Darwinism and the Nature of Nature, 2. Nature vs. Nurture: the Case for Nurture, 3. The Case for Nurture: Nature requires Nurture, 4. The Case for Nurture: the autonomy and pluralism of cultures as a counterargument against the influence of nature, 3. The Case for Nature: Ethology, 4. The Case for Nature: Sociobiology – Theory and Application, 5. The Case for Nature: the Shift to Evolutionary Psychology, 6. Nature and Nurture: Concluding remarks, areas of future research

This thesis examines the problems and paradoxes relating to the role of imagination in human thinking and creativity.  The aim of this study is to come to an understanding of the imagination not as a separate ‘faculty’ of the human mind and, as such, inferior to reason, but rather reappraises imagination as fundamental for human cognition.  This enquiry considers the proposition that human cognition - the mind - functions in conjunction with the workings of the human body and brain.  The enquiry is divided into three parts.  Part One reconsiders the discussion of the imagination in philosophy, with a particular examination of Immanuel Kant.  Part Two explores the role of imagination and the biological sciences in writings on art and aesthetics.  The development of the discipline of art history is, thus, re-examined from the biological approaches employed in eighteenth-nineteenth-and early twentieth-century art writings.  Part Three analyses theories of the evolution of the human species in relation to the role of the imagination.  The coevolution of the human body, brain and mind is investigated and, subsequently, discussed as the basis for human creativity and art.  In conclusion, the incorporation of a biological approach to art history is advocated.