Sex, Gender, Ethics and the Darwinian Evolution of Mankind

150 years of Darwin's 'Descent of Man'
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-032-52117-6
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 294 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 611 g

Reihe: History and Philosophy of Biology

Sex, Gender, Ethics and the Darwinian Evolution of Mankind examines the impact of Darwin’s Descent of Man on contemporary biology and the humanities.

Its publication in 1871 was a founding event in anthropology. Its content was primarily concerned with the development of sexual life, social life and intellectual life, not only as outcomes of evolution, but as components that have actively intermixed over time with the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection. The stamp of Darwinism on modern thought is still very important and brings novelties to academic studies. Several fields influenced by Darwinian anthropology developed in recent decades, including evolutionary ethics, the evolution of sociality and sexual communication in animal and plant species. Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology are topics that draw heavily on Darwin’s Descent of Man. The understanding of Darwin’s thought has also progressed greatly in recent decades, following the systematic study of Darwin’s correspondence and notebooks, leading to a reassessment of the development of his thought on humans, social groups and heredity, and how they come together in his theory of evolution.

The book combines a historical perspective on Darwin’s achievement and his legacy. It will be of interest to students and scholars in a variety of fields, from experimental biology to the social and historical sciences.

Zielgruppe

General and Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Veuille, Michel

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Darwin and the Descent of Man: Great Revolutionary but No Rebel

2. Reason and Morality in the Descent of Man

3. Virtues According to Darwin: An Unfinished and Challenging Journey 150 Years Later

4. Selections and Analogies in Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871)

5. Sexual Selection, By Jean Gayon. An Interview with Victor Petit

6. What Distinctions are Usefully Drawn Today Between Natural and Sexual Selection?

7. Sexual Selection, Aesthetic Choice, and Agency

8. Natural Selection and the Proportion of the Sexes: The Two Conflicting Versions (1871 and 1874) 

9. Darwin’s Model of Sex Ratio Evolution in the First Edition of Descent of Man and His Mysterious Retraction in the Second

10. Darwin’s Retraction on Natural Selection and Sexes in the Descent of Man: A Case Study of Darwin’s Use of Statistical Methodology to Advance His Evolutionary Ideas

11. How Darwin Dismissed His Own Discoveries About Inbreeding and Sex Ratio

12. Darwin on the African Ancestry of Humans. Deduction and Intuition

13. Darwin’s Descent, Prehistoric Archaeology, and the Origin of Gender

14. “As Man Advances in Civilisation…”: Darwin on the Expanding Circle of Moral Regard, From His Day to Ours

15. Psychology and Social Sciences: Darwinism within the Limits of Simple Reason?

16. Evolutionary Psychology from the Descent of Man To Generalized Darwinism

Über Autor(innen)

Michel Veuille is Honorary Professor at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences Lettres (PSL), France, Chair of Integrative Population Biology. As a geneticist he studied sexual selection, then worked in molecular population genetics under the direction of Richard Lewontin. His research focused on the molecular characterization of natural selection in populations. As a historian he worked with Jean Gayon on the history of population genetics.