scholarly journals How Troubling Is Our Inheritance? A Review of Genetics and Race in the Social Sciences

2015 ◽  
Vol 661 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip N. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Popular Book ◽  
The Social ◽  
Evolutionary View ◽  
Relative Status ◽  
Point Of Departure

This article addresses the argument that there is variation between races in the biological basis for social behavior. The article uses Nicholas Wade’s popular book, A Troublesome Inheritance, as the point of departure for a discussion of attendant issues, including the extent to which human races can be definitively demarcated biologically, the extent to which genetics is related to contemporary definitions of race, and the role of natural selection as a possible mechanism for change in modern societies. My critical review of the theory and evidence for an evolutionary view of racial determinism finds that genetics does not explain the relative status and well-being of today’s racially identified groups or their broader societies.

scholarly journals How Troubling is our Inheritance - A review of genetics and race in the social sciences

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip N. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Popular Book ◽  
The Social ◽  
Evolutionary View ◽  
Relative Status ◽  
Point Of Departure

This article addresses the argument that there is variation between races in the biological basis for social behavior. The article uses Nicholas Wade’s popular book, A Troublesome Inheritance, as the point of departure for a discussion of attendant issues, including the extent to which human races can be definitively demarcated biologically, the extent to which genetics is related to contemporary definitions of race, and the role of natural selection as a possible mechanism for change in modern societies. My critical review of the theory and evidence for an evolutionary view of racial determinism finds that genetics does not explain the relative status and well-being of today’s racially identified groups or their broader societies.

scholarly journals Cold War Sewing Machines: Production and Consumption in 1950s China and Japan

2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 755-783 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Finnane
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cold War ◽  
English Language ◽  
Chinese Women ◽  
Acting Out ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Point Of Departure

With the “consumption turn” in the humanities and the social sciences, a phenomenon evident in English-language scholarship from the 1980s onward, production ceased to command the attention it had once received from historians. A recent (2012) study of the sewing machine in modern Japan by Harvard historian Andrew Gordon demonstrates the effects: what could feasibly have been published under the title “Making Machinists” was instead marketed as “Fabricating Consumers.” What does it mean to talk about consumers in 1950s Japan, a time and place of hard work, thrift, and restraint? For Gordon an important premise was the role of women in the postwar economy. This provides a point of departure from which to explore the ideologies and practices of production and consumption across the Cold War dividing line between “consumerist” and “productionist” regimes in East Asia. The Cold War was a time of sharp differences between the two societies, but also a time of shared preoccupations with productivity and national growth. In their different political contexts, Japanese and Chinese women were acting out many of the same roles.

scholarly journals Philosophy of Well-Being for the Social Sciences

2021 ◽  
pp. 217-228
Author(s):  
Guy Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
The Social

In this chapter, the author provides an introduction to philosophical work on well-being. He begins by explaining the specific kinds of questions that philosophers are interested in when it comes to well-being. The author then seeks to explain the role of thought experiments in philosophical work on well-being. He explains why such cases are useful and nongratuitous and describes the methodological assumptions that underlie their use. Finally, the author explains how philosophers seek to preserve a common subject matter for debate—well-being—even in the presence of radical disagreement about which theory is correct.

scholarly journals An Overview of the Current State of Human Issues in Horticulture in the United States

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia I. Lohr ◽  
Paula Diane Relf
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Gardens ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Plant Sciences

Throughout history, plants have been used to benefit people. In the United States, formal research to document the impacts of plants on people was not published until the 1970s, when papers from social and medical scientists began to appear. In the 1990s, symposia, including the first on “The Role of Horticulture in Human Well-being and Social Development,” brought people together from around the world to share and expand their knowledge in this emerging field. Symposium participants have included researchers in the social sciences and plant sciences, practitioners in horticultural therapy, teachers in colleges and public gardens, industry representatives applying the knowledge, and more. This has formed the basis for current activities in research, teaching, and practice throughout the United States. Examples from research that now documents a variety of beneficial impacts of plants on people are discussed.

Relationships of people in the crisis of homelessness with animals: support and rooting or exploitation of animals?

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 107-128
Author(s):  
Hanna Mamzer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Consciousness ◽  
The Social ◽  
Animal Companionship ◽  
Social Importance ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between the homeless and their animals is treated as marginal, as an issue of little social importance. The most probable cause are “common sense” approaches that focus on the more urgent challenges that need to be addressed to increase the well-being of the homeless such as providing health care, financial support and employment. Contrary to these needs, relations with animals appear as a kind of a whim that creates problems and is not crucial. Indeed, in the social sciences in general, the value of human and animal companionship, as an important source of positive emotions, is being increasingly analysed. The role of animals in human societies increases as social consciousness changes. The role of animals in the lives of socially marginalized people is still being questioned. In this work I identify the emotional significance of the relationship with animals for the homeless people.

The role of the Sociology of Health and Medicine in the current debate on interdisciplinarity in Social Sciences

2012 ◽  
pp. 131-154
Author(s):  
Roberto Vignera
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Behavioral Genetics ◽  
General Context ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Social Behavior ◽  
Sociology Of Health

Since the earliest phases of its institutionalization, the sociology of health and medicine has played an increasingly central role within the more general context of sociological thinking. Its prospects are further heightened in the context of the current debate on the interactions between the social sciences and fields of knowledge like cognitive science, behavioral genetics, neurosciences, which are becoming more and more closely engaged with the study of Human Social Behavior. This mediation role, however, finds it difficult to manifest itself due to the various theoretical and epistemological inclinations that sociology has relied on to solidify its own identity and stand apart from the formal criteria used in other scholarly contexts.

scholarly journals Religion, theology and the social sciences in a society in transition

2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Etienne De Villiers
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
The Social ◽  
Societal Changes ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Point Of Departure

The societal changes introduced with the advent of the new political dispensation in South Africa in 1994 brought with them serious consequences for the different religions and for the academic disciplines devoted to the study of religion. This includes disciplines such as theology and religious studies, as well as those social sciences with an academic interest in religion as influential societal factor. The second part of the article presents a brief survey of the impact of these societal changes on religion, particularly the Christian religion, and the academic disciplines of theology, religious studies and the social sciences. An outline of the position and role of religion and the academic disciplines of theology, religious studies and the social sciences in the apartheid society from which South Africa is evolving, is used as point of departure in the first part of the article. The third part of the article ventures beyond mere description of the position and role of religion and the different academic disciplines involved with the study of religion. It aims to make out a case that in the New South Africa religion and academic disciplines exclusively devoted to the study of religion, such as theology, need the social sciences.

Concluding Summary

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Figdor
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Conceptual Foundation ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Research ◽  
Internal And External Factors ◽  
Conceptual Confusion

Chapter 10 provides a summary of the argument of the book. It elaborates some of the benefits of Literalism, such as less conceptual confusion and an expanded range of entities for research that might illuminate human cognition. It motivates distinguishing the questions of whether something has a cognitive capacity from whether it is intuitively like us. It provides a conceptual foundation for the social sciences appropriate for the increasing role of modeling in these sciences. It also promotes convergence in terms of the roles of internal and external factors in explaining both human and nonhuman behavior. Finally, it sketches some of the areas of new research that it supports, including group cognition and artificial intelligence.

A Phenomenology of Rhythm

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lexi Eikelboom
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Henri Lefebvre ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analytical Importance ◽  
Jazz Performance

This chapter proposes a framework for approaching the theological significance of rhythm through phenomenology, prosody, and the social sciences. In accordance with the general categories of phenomenology established by Merleau-Ponty and the “rhythmanalysis” of Henri Lefebvre, the chapter investigates two experiences of rhythm: approaches to analysing the human encounter with rhythm in the reading of poetry and the role of rhythm in social interactions introduced through commonalities between rhythm in conversation and in jazz performance. These explorations establish two features of rhythm that are of analytical importance for the chapters that follow: (1) the synchronic and the diachronic as two necessary but distinct theoretical perspectives on rhythm, each of which emphasizes different features of rhythm and (2) the importance of interruption for understanding rhythm’s significance.

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