网范文：“A SOCIOBIOLOGY OF SOCIETIES” 这样可能会构建一个社会生物学的基础，社会生物学的定义是系统探讨的所有社会行为，英语论文，英语论文范文，社会生物学的功能是将社会科学的基础,纳入到现代进化理论中，到达生物学和社会科学的融合，这个问题是人性的深层结构,本质上是生理现象,也是人文学科的重点。这篇范文讲述了这一问题。有反对的一些观点，将国家视为竞争生物体可能延伸得太远，它模糊了有机体的想法。
谈论国家或社会相互竞争，受制于自然选择，在这个层次上，再次进化的生物学语言滥用。国家和社会的变化和适应，他们不复制或基因变异，他们有一个生命周期。下面的范文进行详述。
Such might be the basis for constructing a sociobiology of societies extending E.O. Wilson's interpretation: "Sociobiology is defined as the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior.... One of the functions of sociobiology... is to reformulate the foundations of the social sciences in a way that draws these subjects into the Modern [evolutionary] Synthesis" (1975, p. 4) to arrive at "the blending of biology and the social sciences... the two cultures... will be joined at last... This concern is the deep structure of human nature, an essentially biological phenomenon that is also the primary focus of the humanities" (1978, p. 10). There are objections to such an idea which present themselves, for example:
The search for order or direction in history is a mirage.
To treat nations as competing organisms, or superorganisms, is stretching a metaphor much too far. It blurs the idea of organism.
To talk about nations or societies being in competition with each other and being subject to natural selection at this level is again a misuse of the language of evolutionary biology. It is a reversion essentially to eugenics, Social Darwinism, Nazi racial theory and so on.
Nations and societies are not extinguished but change and adapt. They do not reproduce or genetically mutate; they do not bud or have a life-cycle.
Williams, Hamilton and Dawkins have argued effectively that evolution is about the survival of genes, not of phenotypes or groups or societies. The ant society is an expression of special genetic and reproductive features of ants and has nothing to do with the quite different reproductive patterns of humans. But is the same true for all social insects? "Group selection... is particularly applicable to polygyne ant and wasp colonies with unrelated queens" (Brian 1983, p. 245)and Helena Cronin's careful consideration of the matter: "But there are problems. the main one is that termites don't seem to behave as predicted. They appear to dispense altruism to kin regardless of sex; both males and females act as sterile helpers and no evidence has yet been found that either sex biases its good deeds in favour of its own sex. There's also the problem that only some termites have 'giant sex chromosomes' and there is nothing special about the social behavior of those that do.... this list of misgivings" (1991, p. 297).
Group selection is a heresy which has been effectively destroyed, despite attempts to revive it. You neglect the solid basis of theory of altruism, reciprocal altruism etc linked directly to the propagation of genes.
Predicting evolutionary future from the evolutionary past is the sheerest speculation. Evolution has no direction or purpose. It is even less credible to use a pseudo-evolutionary approach to speculate about the future of human societies, in general or specifically.
Such discussion of societies and nations is dangerous, can be misused and certainly will be misused.
The forms of cultural change are not genetic but symbolic, the creation of human minds and not of DNA.
It would take too long to argue these points in depth - the debates are in progress in other places - but the following are quick responses that may be made:
History is no different from evolution where there is no pre- ordered direction or purpose but change is the result of response and adaptation to the environment.
The idea of an organism is not well-defined problems of colonial animals, slime-moulds, ant societies. First define exactly what is meant by organism and then consider whether any system is covered by it or not. The concept of superorganism may be useful, though views on this vary: "The resemblance between the development of an insect colony and of an organism has led to the concept of a 'superorganism'. The analogy has some value. To the extent that individual ants, bees or termites have lost the capacity to reproduce, they can propagate their genes only by ensuring the success of the colony, just as somatic cells can propagate theirs only by ensuring the success of the organism.... But for our purposes the concept of a superorganism is of little use. To understand the origin of animal societies, we must ask how individuals capable of reproduction came to cooperate to the extent that most of them lost the ability to reproduce" (Maynard Smith and Szathmary 1995, 257). "The time may have arrived for the revival of the superorganism concept" (Hölldobler and Wilson 1990, p. 359). "The insect society is an organism. it establishes, grows, matures and reproduces. It is as well defined and regulated as any living system" (Brian 1983, p. 321).
If not natural selection of societies: how should one describe the selective survival of societies? Unnatural selection, planned selection, divinely guided selection?
The welfare state is at the opposite extreme to Social Darwinism as practised at the turn of the century. Competition of modern societies has nothing to do with racial theories. Modern genetic manipulation has nothing to do with eugenics based on the physical elimination of weaker strains.
Nations and societies have disappeared and have emerged. See the kaleidoscopic changes of European nations in the 19th century and of extra-European nations in the 20th century. Societies change their collective genomes over time, they may spawn new societies e.g. the break-up of empires or the USSR. The analogy may be more with amoebas, funguses, invertebrate multiplication.
Group selection is again becoming a plausible concept. It is especially plausible for systems where there are well-developed internal methods of communication and identification of the individual with the group.
One cannot attempt to predict evolutionary change but we humans are in a position to identify environmental and other changes which must have an impact on the individual or the society.
There is no reason why the idea of a sociobiology of societies should be misused any more than a sociobiology of individuals.
Language, and more generally the techniques of communication, play a major role in the functioning of any society (animal or human). If language is rightly described as symbolic in origin and function - which I contest - nevertheless there is the problem identified by Harnad and others of symbolic grounding, how symbols come to be related to the 'real' world. This is something I have considered extensively elsewhere.
CONCLUDING
A final comment: part of the resistance to the idea of a sociobiology of societies, a group sociobiology, flows from the emphasis on the 'selfish gene' and the semi-mathematical theories elaborated to reconcile the gene as the only unit of selection: inclusive fitness, kinship selection, reciprocal altruism, game theories of cooperation, cheaters and so on. Originators of some of these ideas (e.g. the Prisoner's Dilemma) have begun to see the inadequacy or inapplicability of them for human society, however necessary or appropriate they may be for other species: "the intellectual fascination of the Prisoner's Dilemma may have led us to overestimate its evolutionary importance" (Maynard Smith and Szathmary 1995, 261).
The definition of 'gene' used in these theories is variable or questionable: "A unit of natural selection may be something else altogether, and at the very least is likely to be a combination of genes rather than one specific one. In other words, both Dawkins and Wilson take a word with a highly specific biological meaning, and use it with a very much vaguer, and ultimately indefinable (except circularly) meaning" (Hayes 1995, p. 149), the trajectory from gene to behavior (via an immensely complex neural system) is hypothetical: "there are no genes specifically for human behaviors species-typical movement patterns excepted.... There can be no such thing as a generalized reproduction-maximizer mechanism because there is no general, undeniably effective way to maximize reproduction" (Symons 1992, p. 139).
The attempt to bring the very special features of human behavior and human society under theories essentially developed for other animal species may be misguided: "Most of the differences between species among the millions of multicellular animals are probably in discriminations, choices and actions, which are products of the brain, not in skeleton, skin and other organs" (Bullock 1993, p. 95); "measurements of the percent of genomic difference [between humans and other primates] cannot reveal what the crucial differences are.... some writers indulge in an unscientific distortion or shrinkage of scale of degree of complexity in comments similar to these: 'chimpanzees, too, are self-conscious, witness their behavior with a mirror... they cooperate, they communicate, it's all a matter of degree'.... it is precisely the degree of differences between other species and the one that writes poems, recognizes a myriad shades of emotion, fabricates artifacts by the million, invents an infinity of recipes and musical pieces, dances in countless styles, supports libraries, prisons, mental hospitals, universities and wars, that makes it worthwhile the attention of biologists" (Bullock 1993, p. 90). Human sociobiology and the sociobiology of human societies, while it can make use of theory and research derived from other species, must come to grips with the radical differences created by the human possession of language as a societal instrument, and the massive intellectual development consequent on language, something emphasized by Charles Darwin in the Descent of Man (1871, Part I, p. 57).
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