Why aren't the social sciences Darwinian? Thurs 14 - Sat 16 May 2009

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Location: Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Fitzwilliam Street, Cambridge

In the 150 years since the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, the biological sciences have been transformed and synthesised by the theory of evolution. Darwinian evolutionary theory provides a common, unifying framework that links a diverse range of biological disciplines, from anatomy to molecular genetics to palaeontology.

The same cannot be said for the humanities and social sciences (e.g. sociocultural anthropology, archaeology, psychology, sociology, economics, history, politics, linguistics), which have often been strongly resistant to the use of evolutionary theory to explain aspects of human thought, behaviour, society and culture. Perhaps as a result, the social sciences remain fragmented and often theoretically incompatible.

This conference will explore the possible reasons for this resistance to evolutionary theory in terms of the cultural transmission of scientific knowledge. We will ask whether opposition to Darwinian evolutionary theory in the social sciences and humanities is due to the theory of evolution being rejected entirely, and if so, whether the reasons for this rejection are the same as for many members of the public. Or perhaps many social scientists accept that evolution is relevant to the study of non-human species but not to the study of humans, in which case we will explore the reasons for this human/non-human distinction. Finally, we will examine the idea of evolution itself: how it is understood by academics and lay-persons, and the potential barriers to accurate understanding.

Confirmed Speakers: Gillian Bentley (University of Durham) Ted Benton (University of Essex) William Brown (Brunel University) Raymond Corbey (Leiden University) Tom Dickins (University of East London) Robin Dunbar (IUniversity of Oxford) Robert Foley (University of Cambridge) Geoffrey Hodgson (University of Hertfordshire) Simon Kirby (University of Edinburgh) Stephen Levinson (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics) Tim Lewens (University of Cambridge) Ruth Mace (University College London) Alex Mesoudi (Queen Mary, University of London) Daniel Nettle (University of Newcastle) Felix Riede (University College London) Jamie Tehrani (University of Durham) Michael Tomasello (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) David S. Wilson (Binghamton University) Lewis Wolpert FRS (University College London) John van Wyhe (CRASSH)

This is a symposium organised by the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities and sponsored by The Andrew Mellon Foundation, The Galton Institute and The Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies.