In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Charles Darwin, who spoke frequently of savages and lower races of intermediate creatures and wrote that men were superior in mind and body to women, implicitly accepted a hierarchy of human beings. Social Darwinism left a legacy of racism, exclusionary immigration policies, eugenics and discrimination against women, as Stanford historian Degler demonstrates in this scholarly, dispassionate, historical examination of the nature vs. nurture controversy. Today, new biocultural theories of evolution shouldn't it be: 'new biocultural theories of evolution'?aa stress the interaction of environment and heredity; ethologists studying lions and chimps in the wild revealless wordy. aa continuity between animal and human behavior; animal rights activists draw on Darwin for support; and sociobiologists maintain that human morality has been shaped by biologytighter.aa . Degler argues that this "return to biology" is not a return to Social Darwinism, as culturalists have charged, but an attempt to give biological and genetic factorsor 'influences'?aa/leave as is.gs their due. His wide-ranging discussion also exploresok? aa the incest taboo and differences between the sexes.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Noted historian Degler's new work covers much of the same nature-nurture territory as Kenneth Bock's Human Nature and History ( LJ 11/15/80), but most of the material is presented as narrative history full of personalities and contexts rather than simply as competing ideas. Ranging from Darwin's day to the present, this account chronicles the rise, fall, and recent resurgence of biological and hereditarian (especially racial and gender-based) explanations of the variations in behavior and intelligence. Degler's study is thoroughgoing and evenhanded, though it is far more engaging when it recounts struggles to overcome racism and eugenics in the early decades of this century than when it attempts to evaluate current work on these topics . For academic and larger public library collections.
- Glenn Petersen, Baruch Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (November 5, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195077075
• ISBN-13: 978-0195077070
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #593,158 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Historical Malaise, March 24, 2005

By	D. S. Heersink "D. Stephen Heersink" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is a good nature/nurture dialectic book to read. Degler's book is a historical account of - not a philosophical, sociological, or psychological argument for - the rise and fall of "social Darwinism."

He begins with an important historical demarcation at the beginning of the 19th century between Spencerism (Herbert Spencer), Lamarckism (Jean Baptiste Lamarck), and Darwinism (Charles Darwin). What we call "social Darwinism" today is not derived from Darwin himself (although one might infer it from his "Descent of Man"), but is actually Spencerism. Spencer, not Darwin, is the one that asserted man is entirely biologically determined. In the nature/nurture dichotomy after the appearance of "Descent of Man," nature is the sole determinate of human nature.

Degler then proceeds for about 200 pages to describe the various reactions against all three of the above forms of evolution as it applies to human beings, starting with the provocative and virulent challenges from anthropology, particularly by Franz Boaz, then onto sociology, and finally onto psychology. All three of these social sciences denied that evolution in any of the above forms contributed to the makeup of homo sapiens. In what becomes a highly repetitive and often tedious account, Degler excavates a minefield of writers from all the social sciences at the end of the 19th century to the mid-20th century to attack all aspects of biologically acquired or inherited characteristics in mankind invoked by evolution. Almost all of these attacks start from the "liberal" conclusion first, viz., that man is the product of his environment only, and then proceed to provide "empirical" evidence and premises for the conclusion that supports intelligence, sexism, racism, feeblemindedness, and the like are all the consequence of society, culture, and the environment, not the result of any biological, much less evolutionary, determinate. Even the notion of "instinct" is practically annihilated. By 1950, the infamous B. F. Skinner had announced that all human behavior was nothing more than a conditioned response to external stimuli - and nothing more. Thus, during this period of the nature/nurture dispute, despite the variety of approaches in the social sciences, nurture alone was deemed the sole determinate of human nature.

By the end of part two, Degler covers more than fifty years of cultural relativism in the social sciences in manifold detail. By the 1950s, attitudes slowly began to change with two concurrent events: (1) The revitalization of genetics and ethology in the field of psychology, and (2) the publication of three major books: Nikolaus Tinbergen's "Study of Instinct" (1951), Konrad Lorenz's "On Aggression" (1966), and E. O. Wilson's "Sociobiology: The New Synthesis" (1975). Instinct was resurrected, and the social sciences could no longer ignore the biological encroachment of genetics and instinct on every living species, including man..The incest taboo is but one example that exists both among non-human and human animals. Aggression is another. The flight/fright response is yet another. Dominance/submissiveness, reproductive success, kin inclusiveness, survival of the fittest, etc., are all based on the Darwinian principles of evolution that have shown themselves "predictive" and "probable" (as opposed to absolute and necessary) inherited characteristics. Such characteristics are mere probabilities, based on genetic inheritances over hundreds, if not thousands and millions, of years. How they actually interact with each individual in the human species is, of course, a matter of adaptation of the species to the environment; hence, there is not the Spencerian inevitability that "social Darwinists" speak of.

This book is a treasure trove of historical developments (or lack thereof) of Darwinism in the fields of biology, genetics, anthropology, psychology, and sociology, especially as it pertains to the first-half of the 20th century. It also clears up several ambiguities and misplaced attributions. Overall, though, it can be tedious and repetitive by restating the same principles from myriads of different social scientists. But it is a heuristic device that leads to the triumph of sociobiology as an essential tool in all the sciences, both natural and social. For all of its historical antecedents, it does lack a contemporary balance in how sociobiology is infiltrating our understanding of human nature today. Therefore, be prepared to continue reading a book like E. O. Wilson's "On Human Nature" (Harvard, 1978) or his "Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge" (Vintage, 1998) to get the full thrust of evolutionary theory in the social and natural sciences.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book providing a good historical context for Darwin's influence, October 22, 2005

By	Obi "Obi wan liberali" (SLC, UT) - See all my reviews

This book does a good job of showing Darwin's influence in the social sciences and how Darwin has been used and misused to promote certain ideas.

Starting off, the book discusses Darwinism and some contemporary philosophies that Darwinism influenced such as Spencerism and Lamarckism. If there was a goal this book sought to accomplish was to broaden in the minds of the non-professional the idea that Darwinism is relevant to the social sciences despite the abuses of those who misused Darwinism to promote the bigotry found in "social Darwinism."

Not an earth-shattering book that will likely change the course of the studies of human nature, it never the less puts Darwinism in a more useful and meaningful place in understanding how humans evolved and the role culture and learning played in that evolution.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Detailed, Readable Intellectual History, April 3, 2000

By	Brian O'Malley (Atlantic Beach, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Through intellectual biohgraphies of numerous social thinkers, Carl Degler traces the evolving social implications of biological thought. Degler traces the theme in the writings of individuals, and in the thought of the public and policymakers.

Degler's account only hints at the often ghoulish results (e.g., forced sterilizations). Degler, however, did not intend to fully document American crimes against humanity; he intended to offer the history of a certain theme in American intellectual life. Degler offers a fascinating account of the rise, staggering fall, and gradual comeback of Social Darwinism in American thought.