UID:
almafu_9959235894602883
Format:
1 online resource (310 pages)
ISBN:
1-282-33429-8
,
9786612334290
,
1443811742
,
9781443811743
Content:
Before oxygen's discovery, scientists invoked a mysterious inner principle of fire to account for burning. Today, scholars appeal to an analogously unscientific inner principle, known as culture, to account for human actions. So what is wrong with culture?! It extends from the contents of Petrie dishes to art galleries and is far too imprecise for scientific use. Science aims to separate causes from effects but social scientists use “culture” indiscriminately as both cause and effect making scientific progress impossible. Finally, culture is a smokescreen distracting us from the quest for objective influences on human behavior. (Polygamy is more about parasites than religion, for instance). This book is both a critique of culture-centered social sciences and the manifesto for a new approach - evolutionary social science - that synthesizes evolution and sociology. The author demonstrates that a natural-science approach to human societies helps us to understand social problems such as health inequality and violent crime. Written in a more high-spirited and accessible style than is customary for academic works, The Myth of Culture is a full-throttle indictment of ivory-tower social scientists whose arcane lore does more to feather their nests than to advance knowledge, or solve human problems. It should have broad appeal among college-educated people around the world.
Note:
Description based upon print version of record.
,
Teapots in heaven, phlogiston on earth -- The emptiness of moral explanations -- Replacing moralism with science -- Stitching up the fabric of evolutionary time -- If culture is a myth, why is religion so dangerous? -- Enemies of evolutionary social science -- Evolutionary science is empirical and practical, not "speculative" and "just so" -- Wounds that time can't heal -- Looking beyond the individual -- What evolutionary theory can and cannot do -- Appendix : Subjective science? Sociology lurches into philosophy.
,
English
Additional Edition:
ISBN 1-84718-619-X
Language:
English
