
Biology After the Sociobiology Debate : What Introductory Textbooks Say About the Nature of Science and Organisms.
Title:
Biology After the Sociobiology Debate : What Introductory Textbooks Say About the Nature of Science and Organisms.
Author:
Schifellite, Carmen James.
ISBN:
9781453902523
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (280 pages)
Contents:
CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments ix -- Introduction xi -- PART I: THE SOCIOBIOLOGY DEBATE -- Chapter 1: The Sociobiology Debate: An Overview 3 -- Chapter 2: Constructing Legitimacy and Credibility 33 -- Chapter 3: The Sociobiology Debate and the Nature of Science 72 -- PART II: THE TEXTBOOK STUDY -- Chapter 4: Methodological Issues and Textbook Selection 109 -- Chapter 5: The Raven and Johnson Textbooks 119 -- Chapter 6: Biology: Discovering Life: A More Qualified Presentation 144 -- Chapter 7: Biology: Principles, Patterns, and Processes: A Canadian Compromise 164 -- Chapter 8: Two Editions of Biology: Moving Toward More Balanced and Nuanced Positions 183 -- Chapter 9: Where To Go from Here? 202 -- Appendix I: The Circular 14 Textbooks List 215 -- Appendix II: Notes about Method 219 -- Bibliography 223 -- Index 243.
Abstract:
This book analyzes the sociobiology debate and details a number of contested issues that have emerged. These issues focus on the interpretations and emphases that both sides have placed on the role of adaptation in evolution; the importance of evolution at the level of the gene versus at the level of organisms and populations; reductionism as a research method; simple Mendelianism versus more complex understandings of the relationship between genotype and phenotype; and ultimately, the nature of science itself. The book includes textual analyses of a selection of university-level introductory biology textbooks written between 1990 and 2010, examining the ways these texts - with their photos, inserts, and various rhetorical devices - cover sociobiology specifically, and animal behavior in general; evolutionary theory; genetic theory; and the nature of science. Biology After the Sociobiology Debate shows how, over the last two decades, sociobiology and the ensuing debates have influenced biological theory about the natures of science and the behavior of organisms, and how that influence is expressed in introductory textbooks. This book is important not just as a sociology of knowledge study, but also because of the ways in which continued biodeterminist discourses may influence debates and policy that are emerging around a new liberal or consumer-based eugenics movement.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Genre:
Electronic Access:
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