Human nature and the limits of science
By: John Dupré.
Publisher: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 201
Subjects: Human beings -- Philosophy; Science -- Philosophy; Genetic psychology; Rational choice theory
Description: John Dupré warns that our understanding of human nature is being distorted by two faulty and harmful forms of pseudo-scientific thinking. Not just in the academic world but increasingly in everyday life, we find one set of experts seeking to explain the ends at which humans aim in terms of evolutionary theory, and another set of experts using economic models to give rules of how we act to achieve those ends. Dupré demonstrates that these theorists' explanations do not work, and furthermore that if taken seriously their theories tend to have dangerous social and political consequences.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [189]-196) and index.