Product Description

In recent decades, Susan Oyama and her colleagues in the burgeoning field of developmental systems theory have rejected the determinism inherent in the nature/nurture debate, arguing that behaviour cannot be reduced to distinct biological or environmental causes. In "Evolution's Eye", Oyama elaborates on her pioneering work on developmental systems by spelling out that work's implications for the fields of evolutionary theory, developmental and social psychology, feminism, and epistemology. Her approach profoundly alters our understanding of the biological processes of development and evolution and the interrelationships between them. While acknowledging that, in an uncertain world, it is easy to blame it on the genes, Oyama claims that the renewed trend toward genetic determinism colours the way we think about everything from human evolution to sexual orientation and personal responsibility.She presents instead a view that focuses on how a wide variety of developmental factors interact in the multileveled developmental systems that give rise to organisms. Shifting attention away from genes and the environment as causes for behaviour, she convincingly shows the benefits that come from thinking about life processes in terms of developmental systems that produce, sustain, and change living beings over both developmental and evolutionary time. Providing a genuine alternative to genetic and environmental determinism, as well as to unsuccessful compromises with which others have tried to replace them, "Evolution's Eye" will fascinate students and scholars who work in the fields of evolution, psychology, human biology, and philosophy of science. Feminists and others who seek a more complex view of human nature will find her work especially congenial.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #216792 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Publishers Weekly, April 24, 2000
"[Oyama's] subtle and sometimes abstruse study of recent concepts in biology and social science . . . aims to displace models of selfish genes with models of competing and interacting processes . . . she wants to think--and to get us to think--about how culture, environment, and genetic programming are constantly "talking to" one another, and how it's their interaction that creates us. It's a worthy goal, and one her book should advance."

Review
"Oyama writes elegantly and from a deep intellectual base. This alternative view to the dominant genetic determinism will be of interest to all who seek a more complex view of human nature. It is an excellent book, beautifully composed."--Katherine Nelson, City University of New York "[Oyama's] subtle and sometimes abstruse study of recent concepts in biology and social science ... aims to displace models of selfish genes with models of competing and interacting processes ... she wants to think--and to get us to think--about how culture, environment, and genetic programming are constantly "talking to" one another, and how it's their interaction that creates us. It's a worthy goal, and one her book should advance."--Publishers Weekly, April 24, 2000 "To think of nature and nurture as two distinct categories is not only wrong, Susan Oyama convincingly argues, but doing so hobbles our attempts to understand the nature of development and evolution at every level. Hers is a voice that needs to be heard."--Evelyn Fox Keller, Massachusetts Institute of Technology "Susan Oyama's Ontogeny of Information provided a navigational chart for researchers seeking to avoid the shoals of the nature-nurture dichotomy. Here, in Evolution's Eye, she good-humouredly unmasks the rhetorical stratagems of reflexive genecentrism, while continuing to strengthen the case for the integrative, multifocal, approach of developmental systems theory."--Helen E. Longino, University of Minnesota

Katherine Nelson, City University of New York
"Oyama writes elegantly and from a deep intellectual base. This alternative view to the dominant genetic determinism will be of interest to all who seek a more complex view of human nature. It is an excellent book, beautifully composed."