Sociobiology and Bioeconomics: The Theory of Evolution in Biological and Economic Theory

by Peter Koslowski (Editor)

Overview

The theory of evolution and Neo-Darwinian biological theory extend their analysis in sociobiology from the life sciences and the animal societies to human societies. Sociobiology as a unifying theory of the social interaction within and between species has led to an integration of economic analysis into biology. The economy of nature has become the subject of bioeconomics which in turn transferred biological analysis to the human economy. Evolution, competition, selection, and cooperation are phenomena common to the economy of nature and human economy. The inclusion of economic and cultural theory in evolution theory raises the question whether the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis with its exclusive concern with somatic heredity is able to incorporate developmental systems of the human economy and of cultural heredity. A new synthesis of the natural and the social sciences is in the making.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783642084706
Publisher:	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publication date:	12/09/2010
Series:	Ethical Economy
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of hardcover 1st ed. 1999
Pages:	341
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.24(d)

Table of Contents

Sociobiology, Theory of Evolution, and Bioeconomics Introduction.- I Neo-Darwinian Synthesis, Sociobiology, and the Economy of Nature.- 1 Darwinian Monism: The Economy of Nature.- 2 Coercion.- 3 Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics Refute the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis?.- II Natural Selection and Developmental Systems: Redrawing the Boundaries Between Genetic and Non-Genetic Factors of Evolution.- 4 Evolutionary and Developmental Formation: Politics of the Boundary.- 5 The Gene Is Dead — Long Live the Gene! Conceptualizing Genes the Constructionist Way.- III Redrawing the Boundaries Between the Narratives of Evolutionary Biology and the Narratives of Hermeneutics, Mythology, and Philosophy.- 6 The Role of Hermeneutics in Biology.- 7 Science and Mythology: a New “metaxu”?.- 8 What Is the Impact of a Philosophically Based Criticism of Socio-Biology on the Sientific Community?.- IV Synergetics, Symbiosis and Cooperation in Sociology and Biology.- 9 Synergetics in Sociology and Biology.- 10 Symbiosis, Mutualism and Cooperation in Biological Evolution.- V Evolutionary Biology and Economic Theory.- 11 Are Economic Systems Like Organisms?.- 12 Darwinism and Economic Theory.- 13 Evolutionary Economics and Evolutionary Biology.- Conclusion.- 14 The Theory of Evolution as Sociobiology and Bioeconomics A Critique of Its Claim to Totality.- List of Authors.- Index of Names.