1st Edition
Sex, Gender, Ethics and the Darwinian Evolution of Mankind 150 years of Darwin’s ‘Descent of Man’
Sex, Gender, Ethics, and the Darwinian Evolution of Humanity 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.
Preface
Michel Veuille
1. Darwin and the Descent of Man: Great Revolutionary but No Rebel
Michael Ruse
2. Reason and Morality in the Descent of Man
Hayley Clatterbuck
3. Virtues According to Darwin: An Unfinished and Challenging Journey 150 Years Later
Eric Charmetant
4. Selections and Analogies in Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871)
M.J.S. Hodge
5. Sexual Selection, By Jean Gayon. An Interview with Victor Petit
Jean Gayon And victor Petit
6. What Distinctions are Usefully Drawn Today Between Natural and Sexual Selection?
Alan Grafen
7. Sexual Selection, Aesthetic Choice, and Agency
Hugh Desmond
8. Natural Selection and the Proportion of the Sexes: The Two Conflicting Versions (1871 and 1874)
Charles Darwin
9. Darwin’s Model of Sex Ratio Evolution in the First Edition of Descent of Man and His Mysterious Retraction in the Second
Elliott Sober
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
André Ariew
11. How Darwin Dismissed His Own Discoveries About Inbreeding and Sex Ratio
Michel Veuille
12. Darwin on the African Ancestry of Humans. Deduction and Intuition
Jorge Martinez Contreras
13. Darwin’s Descent, Prehistoric Archaeology, and the Origin of Gender
Claudine Cohen
14. “As Man Advances in Civilisation…”: Darwin on the Expanding Circle of Moral Regard, From His Day to Ours
Gregory Radick
15. Psychology and Social Sciences: Darwinism within the Limits of Simple Reason?
Philippe Huneman
16. Evolutionary Psychology from the Descent of Man To Generalized Darwinism
Agathe Du Crest
Biography
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.
