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Vaulting Ambitionis the first extensive and detailed evaluation of the controversial claims that sociobiologists have made about human nature and human social behavior. It raises the "sociobiology debate" to a new level, moving beyond arguments about the politics of the various parties involved, the degree to which sociobiology assumes genetic determinism, or the falsifiability of the general theory. Sociobiology has made a great deal of noise in the popular intellectual culture. Vaulting Ambition cuts through the charges and counter-charges to take a hard look at the claims and analyses offered by the sociobiologists. It examines what the claims mean, how they relate to standard evolutionary theory, how the biological models are supposed to work, and what is wrong with the headline-grabbing proclamations of human sociobiology. In particular, it refutes the notions that humans are trapped by their evolutionary biology and history in endlessly repeating patterns of aggression, xenophobia, and deceitfulness, or that the inequities of sex, race, and class are genetically based or culturally determined. And it takes up issues of human altruism, freedom, and ethics as well. Kitcher weighs the evidence for sociobiology, for human sociobiology, and for "the pop sociobiological view" of human nature that has engendered the controversy. He concludes that in the field of nonhuman animal studies, rigorous and methodologically sound work about the social lives of insects, birds, and mammals has been done. But in applying the theories to human beings-where even more exacting standards of evidence are called for because of the potential social disaster inherent in adopting a working hypothesis as a basis for public policy - many of the same scientists become wildly speculative, building grand conclusions from what Kitcher shows to be shoddy analysis and flimsy argument. While it may be possible to develop a genuine science of human behavior based on evolutionary biology, genetics, cognition, and culture, Kitcher points out that the sociobiology that has been loudly advertised in the popular and intellectual press is not it. Pop sociobiology has in fact been felled by its overambitious and overreaching creators. Philip Kitcher is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, and Director of its Center for the Philosophy of Science. He brings a unique combination of training in philosophy, mathematics, and biology to this thorough treatment of sociobiology. Kitcher is the author of an equally searching book on "Scientific" Creationism, Abusing Science, published by The MIT Press in 1982 and available in paperback.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Preface(p. ix)
• A Bicycle is Not Enough(p. 1)
• 1 From Nature Up(p. 13)
• 2 The Rules of the Game(p. 37)
• 3 A Beginner's Guide to Life, Sex, and Fitness(p. 77)
• 4 What is Sociobiology?(p. 113)
• 5 Tycho's Gift(p. 133)
• 6 Misadventures in Method(p. 183)
• 7 Dr. Pangloss's Last Hurrah(p. 213)
• 8 The Proper Study?(p. 241)
• 9 Hypotheses Non Fingo(p. 281)
• 10 The Emporer's New Equations(p. 331)
• 11 The Last Infirmity(p. 395)
• Postscript(p. 435)
• References(p. 439)
• Index(p. 449)

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CHOICE Review

An ambitious analysis of the epistemological and empirical problems of sociobiology as a scientific construct and as a set of popular elaborations. Kitcher demonstrates that sociobiologists build hypotheses to meet the requirements of an elaborate theory when the primary data are not yet clear: for example, primate studies show that male dominance does not always correlate with reproductive success, in chimpanzees or lemurs. In analyses of fitness data in dung flies where females are viewed as passive, ``fixed constraints on plastic male behavior'' and of the ``altruistic behavior'' of nonbreeding jays are shown to be inadequate for the sociobiological conclusions they are meant to support. Because of methodological difficulties, the ethological basis of sociobiology is insecure. Its extreme adaptationism is an ``article of faith.'' Kitcher shows how anthromorphic language conceals logical lacunae and underwrites stereotypes. Reductionistic assumptions, that specific behaviors are encoded or that a single behavioral strategy pertains throughout life are major weaknesses. Human sociobiology comes in for Kitcher's most severe criticism. Lumsden's complex mathematical equations are revealed as technical obfuscation disguising the simplistic picture of gene-culture coevolution underneath. The poverty of sociobiology as a worldview is nowhere better exposed than in Kitcher's demonstration of the inadequacy of the biologization of moral principles. After this well-reasoned and rigorous critique, students of sociobiology will have to return to the disciplinary bases in the natural and social sciences before a meaningful synthesis can be reached. Graduate level.-M.J. Goodman, University of Hawaii at Manoa