Myth, metaphor and hypothesis: how anthropomorphism defeats science

1995 ◽  
Vol 349 (1328) ◽  
pp. 215-218 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The State ◽  
Selfish Gene ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Rationalism

Dawkin’s theory of the selfish gene has achieved an hegemony quite out of proportion to its intellectual finesse. Its popularity among not just sociobiologists, but biologists proper, provides yet another illustration of the susceptibility of scientific rationalism to the social and political ideologies of the day, to which scientists, being only too human, are heir. A singular achievement of nineteenth century biology, through such writers as Darwin and Huxley, was the construction of an objectifying language for the description of biological phenomena. Transposed into evolutionary theory, this language carefully deanthropomorphizes the processes of mutation, competition and survival, which were defined as central to the state of being of the natural world. Implications of motivation and intention were excluded from the meaning of these terms, as improper for the species and operations involved.

Re-imagining the Social Order

2018 ◽  
pp. 155-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Innes
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
The State ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Old Order ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Late Eighteenth

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw attempts around the Mediterranean world to replace an old order of privilege and delegated power with one in which all subjects were equal before the state. Across southern Europe, revolutionary France provided the model: under French and subsequently liberal regimes, privilege in state, church, and economy was cut back; there were analogous changes in the Ottoman world. Legal change did not always translate into substantive social change. Nonetheless, new conceptions of a largely autonomous ‘society’ developed, and new protocols were invented to relate state to ‘society’, often entailing use of tax status as a reference point for the allocation of rights and duties. The French Doctrinaires argued that the abolition of privilege made society ‘democratic’, posing the question, how was such a society best governed? By the middle of the nineteenth century, this conception was widely endorsed across southern Europe.

Investors and Exploiters in Ecology and Economics

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Independent Research ◽  
Research Traditions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
Cancerous Cells

In the natural world, some agents (investors) employ strategies that provide resources, services, or information while others (exploiters) achieve gain through these efforts. Such behavior coexists and is observable in many species at many levels: from bacteria which depend on the existence of biofilms to synthesize constituent proteins; to cancerous cells which employ angiogenesis in tumors; to parents who forego vaccinating their children yet benefit from herd immunity; to countries’ actions in the handling of greenhouse gases. To analyze such behavior, two independent research traditions have developed in parallel—one couched in evolutionary theory championed by behavioral ecologists, the other in the social sciences advocated by economists. This book looks for commonalities in understanding and approach, in an effort to spur research into this widespread phenomenon.

The Social Outlook of Prussian Conservatism

1953 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
William O. Shanahan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The Social ◽  
Fourth Decade ◽  
Historical Importance ◽  
Coherent Body ◽  
Practical Conduct

Prussian Conservatism was not an ideology comparable to those which have breathed into every crevice of twentieth century totalitarian states. It was not really an ideology at all, if that term is understood to mean a system of thought enforced by the state so as to give every human act a political meaning. The Prussian conservatives, conditioned by an aristocratic disdain for a political rationale, were unable to agree on a uniform principle of political conduct. Shades of meaning, based largely on the balance struck between religion and political realism, persisted in coloring the conservative temperament. Yet by the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, Prussian conservatism had become a coherent body of thought distinct from liberalism, democracy, or socialism. Its historical importance became assured, when, at Bismarck's hands, Prussian conservatism entered wholeheartedly into the making of what the liberal historian, Erich Eyck, has called “German constitutionalism,” that is a system of politics respectful of authority, but equally disdainful of democracy and absolutism, in which the practical conduct of government may be guided by moral principles in an irrational world.

Religious Thought and Experience in the Prison Camps

2020 ◽  
pp. 579-591
Author(s):  
Andrea Gullotta
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Direct Effect ◽  
The State ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
The Social ◽  
Prison Camp ◽  
Russian Religious Thought

The development of religious thought has often been marked by discord and conflicts between religions (and/or individual religious thinkers) and the State, which at times led to the repression of individuals and or groups of people united by the same confession. The Russian case is fully in line with this unfortunate tradition: from Nikon’s schism to the repression against all religions under the Soviet regime, Russian religious thought has often developed in repressive conditions. However, the Russian case has one distinguishing feature, that is, the extensive use of prison camps by Russian and Soviet authorities from the nineteenth century onwards, which has had a direct effect on some religious thinkers. The social and historical-cultural peculiarities of both Tsarist camps and the Gulag have shaped some of those thinkers’ views (for instance, Dostoevsky’s intellectual path was deeply influenced by his experience in the camp). Drawing upon both primary and secondary sources, this chapter aims at showing how the experience of detention in a Russian/Soviet prison camp has influenced some Russian religious thinkers such as Dostoevsky, Florensky, and Karsavin. It will also point readers’ attention to some lesser-known contributions to religious thought by philosophers, poets, and writers.

Why Cooperate?

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas N. Sherratt ◽  
David M. Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Kin Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Selfish Gene ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
Vampire Bats ◽  
The Common

An altruistic act is one in which an individual incurs a cost that results in a benefit to others. Giving money or time to those less fortunate than ourselves is one example, as is giving up one’s seat on a bus. At first, one might consider such behaviour hopelessly naive in a world in which natural selection seemingly rewards selfishness in the competitive struggle for existence. As the saying goes, ‘nice guys finish last’. Yet examples of apparent altruism are commonplace. Meerkats will spend hours in the baking sun keeping lookout for predators that might attack their colony mates. Vampire bats will regurgitate blood to feed their starving roost fellows, while baboons will take the time and effort to groom other baboons. Some individuals, such as honeybee workers, forego their own reproduction to help their queen and will even die in her defence. The common gut bacterium Escherichia coli commits suicide when it is infected by a bacteriophage, thereby protecting its clones from being infected. If helping incurs a cost, then surely an individual that accepts a cooperative act yet gives nothing in return would do better than cooperators? What, then, allows these cases of apparent altruism to persist? In his last presidential address to the Royal Society of London in November 2005, Robert M. May argued, ‘The most important unanswered question in evolutionary biology, and more generally in the social sciences, is how cooperative behaviour evolved and can be maintained’. In this chapter, we document a number of examples of cooperation in the natural world and ask how it is maintained despite the obvious evolutionary pressure to ‘cheat’. We will see that, while it is tempting to see societies as some form of higher organism, to fully understand cooperation, it helps to take a more reductionist view of the world, frequently a gene-centred perspective. Indeed, thinking about altruism has led to one of the greatest triumphs of the ‘selfish gene’ approach, namely the theory of kin selection. Ultimately, as the quote from Mandeville indicates, we will see that cooperation frequently arises simply out of pure self-interest—it just so happens that individuals (or, more precisely, genes) in the business of helping themselves sometimes help others.

Nature and Modernity: J. C. Atkinson and Rural Ministry in England c. 1850–1900

2010 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 366-395
Author(s):  
William Sheils
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Rural Ministry ◽  
Religion And Ecology ◽  
Social Mission ◽  
The Social ◽  
Clean Air ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Rapid Transformation

The impact of industrialization and urbanization in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the Churches’ responses to it, in terms of meeting pastoral needs and devotional impulses, has produced an extensive literature since Owen Chadwick’s magisterial study of forty years ago. Much of that has focussed on the social mission of the Church, but the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species and the rapid transformation of parts of the physical landscape following industrialization and urbanization in the later nineteenth century also raised issues about humanity’s relationship to the natural world and in particular, for the purposes of this paper, the English countryside. Questions about that relationship have become even more pressing as industrialization has made a global impact and our use — and abuse — of the world’s natural resources threaten to deplete those life-giving assets upon which our future depends: clean air and clean water. Historians have much to contribute to the debate and the publication of The Oxford Handbook to Religion and Ecology in 2006 indicates the contemporary importance of the theme to theologians also.

scholarly journals "Zapiski domowe" biskupa Macieja Wołonczewskiego jako przyczynek do poznania sytuacji społecznej i językowej na terenie dawnego Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego pod władzą carów

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 65-83
Author(s):  
Zofia Sawaniewska-Mochowa
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Reliable Source ◽  
Polish Language ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
Grand Duchy

"The Domestic Notes" by Bishop Maciej Wołonczewski (Motiejus Valančius) as a contribution to the knowledge of the social and linguistic situation on the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania under the rule of the tsarsThe article introduces the interesting, albeit controversial, figure of Maciej Wołonczewski (Motiejus Valančius), an important member of the nineteenth-century clergy, and his Polish-language legacy. The bishop of Samogitia’s "Domestic Notes" document persecutions of the Catholic Church in Lithuania after the November and January Uprisings at the hands of Russian Tzarist authorities, and reflect the state of Polish language and its social functions in this historical period.Valančius’ manuscripts, published in the volume edited by the historians Aldona Prašmantaitė and Jan Jurkiewicz [Motiejus Valančius, Namų užrašai (The Domestic Notes), Vilnius: Baltos Lankos, 2003], were subjected to the far-reaching standardization of spelling, thus they are not a reliable source for a linguistic research. A linguist, who would make the effort of describing the Polish language of the author, should therefore locate and take advantage the original sources, dispersed in various archives in Vilnius. "Домашние записки" епископа Матвея Волончевского. К вопросу о социальной и языковой обстановке на территории бывшего Великого княжества Литовского во время царского правленияСтатья приближает интересную, но спорную, личность священника XIX-го века и его письменное наследие на польском языке. Заметки епископа Матвея Волончевского документируют репрессии, применяемые царским правительством по отношению к Католической церкви в Литве после восстаний против царской власти, и – одновременно – отражают состояние тогдашнего польского языка и его общественные функции. Изданные в научной разработке историков: Альдоны Прашмантайте и Яна Юркевича рукописи Волончевского [Motiejus Valančius, Namų užrašai (Домашние заметки), Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 2003] сильно кодифицированы и не могут быть достоверным источником лингвистических исследований. Лингвист, который захочет изучить польский язык жемайтского автора, будет вынужден работать с подлинниками, разбросанными по разным вильнюсским архивным фондам.

scholarly journals The omnipresent power of the invisible: From viruses to being conscious

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 518-525
Author(s):  
Castañeda Cataña MA ◽  
Sepúlveda CS ◽  
Carlucci MJ
Keyword(s):  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Biological Information ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Morphological Development ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Structure Of Communities ◽  
Information Time ◽  
The Social

According to Mayan cosmology, the law of time is represented as the energy factored by time equals to art. Time is a form of biological information. Time in-forms life, in such a way that life forms processes time as information and externalize it specific forms into the three-dimensional world, then time is the principle ordering of life. Indeed, everything in the natural order of the cosmos is beauty and harmony. All life forms on planet earth have their phases of morphological development, this is real even in the social structure of communities of living beings that also may have an aesthetic or artistic quality. This form and measurements of all things constitutes the entire or holistic order of the universe. So, if life is it nothing more than better-informed matter, where does this information come from? Socrates and Platon held that nothing in nature and in the world can be explained by random or chance, as Democritus would have argued, that nature creations occur because they have a Purpose. According to Platon, the natural world is a designer’s result demiurge or a universal consciousness that sets everything in the best possible place. So, if there is a start point where intelligence creates order, where there is order, there is purpose so; what is the purpose then? This work tends to give an answer and show a different perspective of living, studying and understanding (micro)biological phenomena in order to become conscious and assume that Nature is infinitely more powerful than us, the Whole is more than the sum of parts, we are part of it.

Evolutionary Theory in the Social Philosophy of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Hypatia ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen L. Egan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Charlotte Perkins Gilman ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Human Social Evolution

This paper examines Charlotte Perkins Gilman's connection with the evolutionist ideas of late nineteenth century Reform Darwinism. It focuses on the assumptions that her language and use of metaphor reveal, and upon her vision of human social evolution as a meUoristic process through which the equality of the sexes must finally emerge.

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