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Soci326-002 – Evolutionary Sociology

Module 2 – Human Nature I – Discussion Topics – 6 Sep 2005

  1. As a first topic of discussion today I would like each seminar participant to talk about their own intellectual background and intellectual history with respect to the roles of evolution and of biological factors in explaining human behavior, the nature/nurture debate, etc.  If you can, try remembering your feelings about these topics (anger, disgust, embarrassment, illumination, etc.) as well as your more intellectual itinerary.  What issues (e.g., differences in sexual behavior between men and women, class differences in IQ, possible biological basis of violence, apparently pessimistic implications of biology for social justice, religious faith, etc.) have been particularly important in shaping your position vis-à-vis these issues.  To break the ice I will go over this myself first.  Please keep in mind that this is not an interrogation.  There is no a priori better personal history than others, and there is no mandated position on the issues.
  2. In what way(s) do language and linguistic evolution provide a model for the evolution of culture and social organization in general?
  3. A central concept of the emerging evolutionary psychological view of human nature is the concept of modularity, i.e. the innate structuration of the human brain into specialized modules designed (= evolved) to meet specific environmental contingencies such as finding a mate, insure survival of children, communicate with language, avoid being exploited in exchange, etc.  What role does modularity play in the new perspective?  In what way(s) is it (or is it not) threatening to traditional conceptions of human nature based on a "blank slate, noble savage, ghost in the machine" model? 
  4. What are the intellectual sources of opposition to the evolutionary view of human nature, both from the Left and from the Right of the philosophical-political spectrum?
  5. Why has modularity and an evolutionary perspective on human nature imposed themselves in the new perspective?  What fields of research and discoveries have helped consolidate the evolutionary view of human nature?  (What I have in mind here are the 4 "bridges between mind and matter" that Pinker discusses p. 31, 41, 45, 51.)
  6. What are/were the scientific and moral-political reasons for the emergence and eventual triumph in the social sciences of the culture (and society) as existing at a separate level of analysis, separate from individual members?  A related issue is that of the value (or lack thereof) of reductionism.  Are there different kinds of reductionism?
  7. What is the basis of the blank slate's (scientific) "last stand"?  (See Pinker p. 74).

Last modified 6 Sep 2005