The Experts below are selected from a list of 7092 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Chris C Wilson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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evolutionary Theory and historical fertility change
Population and Development Review, 1999Co-Authors: Chris C WilsonAbstract:Probably no issue divides social scientists and natural scientists more demonstrably than their attitudes on the value of Darwin's Theory of evolution by natural selection. The present essay suggests the role that Darwinian Theory can play in the study of human fertility. After examining the nature of Darwinian Theory, the essay considers research carried out on fertility by biologists and anthropologists with methods based on it and possible reformulations of demographic methods and analyses that could benefit fertility research. It ends with suggestions for further research to explore the value of Darwinian approaches to demographic issues. Copyright 1999 by The Population Council, Inc..
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evolutionary Theory and historical fertility change
Population and Development Review, 1999Co-Authors: Chris C WilsonAbstract:This paper examined some of the literature on evolutionary approaches to fertility and assesses the implications of evolutionary models for demographic studies of long-term fertility change. It begins with an overview of the basic ideas of Darwinian Theory as applied to demographic topics. Then follow an identification of the key intellectual contributions of such research and the consideration of the ways in which social and cultural change differ from more strictly biological evolution. Although the value of Darwinian approaches to demographic problems remains argumentative a few generalizations are cited. First that biological evolution has left all humans with a substantial substrate of shared physiological attributes and psychological disposition and second that upon this substrate humans erect elaborate and often diverse cultures. In terms of shared human inheritance it is emphasized that the value of a Darwinian approach seems indisputable. However the value of such conceptual frameworks for long-run analyses of fertility remains to be demonstrated. A number of suggestions for future research are given.
Michael Pirson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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economistic and humanistic narratives of leadership in the age of globality toward a renewed Darwinian Theory of leadership
Journal of Business Ethics, 2015Co-Authors: Paul R Lawrence, Michael PirsonAbstract:Drawing on insights from evolutionary psychology and modern neuroscience, this paper highlights propositions about human nature that have far reaching consequences, when applied to leadership. We specifically examine the main factors of human survival and extend them to a model for leadership in the twenty-first century. The discussion concludes with an outlook on the organizational and structural conditions that would allow for better and more balanced leadership.
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economistic and humanistic narratives of leadership in the age of globality towards a renewed Darwinian Theory of leadership
2014Co-Authors: Paul R Lawrence, Michael PirsonAbstract:Drawing on insights from evolutionary psychology and modern neuroscience, this paper highlights propositions about human nature that have far reaching consequences, when applied to leadership. We specifically examine the main factors of human survival and extend them to a model for leadership in the 21st century. The discussion concludes with an outlook on the organizational and structural condition that would allow for better and more balanced leadership.
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a renewed Darwinian Theory of responsible leadership
Social Science Research Network, 2010Co-Authors: Michael PirsonAbstract:Drawing on insights from evolutionary psychology and modern neuroscience, this paper highlights propositions about human nature that have far reaching consequences, when applied to leadership. Based on Paul Lawrence's work, I examine the main factors of human survival and extend them to a model for leadership in the 21st century. The discussion ends with an outlook on the organizational and structural conditions that would allow for better and more balanced leadership.
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humanism in business towards a paradigm shift
Journal of Business Ethics, 2010Co-Authors: Michael Pirson, Paul R LawrenceAbstract:Management Theory and practice are facing unprecedented challenges. The lack of sustainability, the increasing inequity, and the continuous decline in societal trust pose a threat to ‘business as usual’ (Jackson and Nelson, 2004). Capitalism is at a crossroad and scholars, practitioners, and policy makers are called to rethink business strategy in light of major external changes (Arena, 2004; Hart, 2005). In the following, we review an alternative view of human beings that is based on a renewed Darwinian Theory developed by Lawrence and Nohria (2002). We label this alternative view ‘humanistic’ and draw distinctions to current ‘economistic’ conceptions. We then develop the consequences that this humanistic view has for business organizations, examining business strategy, governance structures, leadership forms, and organizational culture. Afterward, we outline the influences of humanism on management in the past and the present, and suggest options for humanism to shape the future of management. In this manner, we will contribute to the discussion of alternative management paradigms that help solve the current crises.
Liane Gabora - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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probing the mind behind the literal and figurative lightbulb
Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts, 2015Co-Authors: Liane GaboraAbstract:After doing away with the evolutionary scaffold for BVSR, what remains is a notion of "blindness" that does not distinguish BVSR from other theories of creativity, and an assumption that creativity can be understood by treating ideas as discrete, countable entities, as opposed to different external manifestations of a singular gradually solidifying internal conception. Uprooted from Darwinian Theory, BVSR lacks a scientific framework that can be called upon to generate hypotheses and test them. In lieu of such a framework, hypotheses appear to be generated on the basis of previous data--they are not Theory-driven. The paper does not explain how the hypothesis that creativity is enhanced by engagement in a "network of enterprises" is derived from BVSR; this hypothesis is more compatible with competing conceptions of creativity. The notion that creativity involves backtracking conflates evidence for backtracking with respect to the external output with evidence for backtracking of the conception of the invention. The first does not imply the second; a creator can set aside a creative output but cannot go back to the conception of the task he/she had prior to generating that output. The notion that creativity entails superfluity (i.e., many ideas have "zero usefulness") is misguided; usefulness is context-dependent, moreover, the usefulness of an idea may reside in its being a critical stepping-stone to a subsequent idea.
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why blind variation and selective retention is an inappropriate explanatory framework for creativity comment on creative thought as blind variation and selective retention combinatorial models of exceptional creativity by prof simonton
Physics of Life Reviews, 2010Co-Authors: Liane GaboraAbstract:Simonton is attempting to salvage the Blind Variation Selective Retention Theory of creativity (often referred to as the Darwinian Theory of creativity) by dissociating it from Darwinism. This is a necessary move for complex reasons outlined in detail elsewhere. However, whether or not one calls BVSR a Darwinian Theory, it is still a variation-and-selection Theory. Variation-and-selection was put forward to solve a certain kind of paradox, that of how biological change accumulates (that is, over generations, species become more adapted to their environment) despite being discarded at the end of each generation (that is, parents don't transmit to offspring knowledge or bodily changes acquired during their lifetimes, e.g., you don't inherit your mother's ear piercings). This paradox does not exist with respect to creative thought. There is no discarding of acquired change when ideas are transmitted amongst individuals; we share with others modified versions of the ideas we were exposed to on a regular basis.
Peter Murrell - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a Darwinian Theory of institutional evolution two centuries before darwin
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2016Co-Authors: Peter Grajzl, Peter MurrellAbstract:Abstract How effective institutions come about and how they change are fundamental questions for economics and social science more generally. We show that these questions were central in the deliberations of lawyers in 17th century England, a critical historical juncture that has motivated important institutional theories. We argue that the lawyers held a conceptualization of institutional development that foreshadowed many elements of Darwinism, more than two centuries before Darwin’s great contributions. To this end, we first identify a set of features characteristic of Darwinian evolutionary social-science theories. We then match the lawyers’ own words to these features, revealing the many congruities between a Darwinian approach and the lawyers’ evolutionary model of institutional construction and change. Finally, we analyze the normative conclusions on institutional development that the lawyers drew from their evolutionary analysis.
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a Darwinian Theory of institutional development two centuries before darwin
Social Science Research Network, 2015Co-Authors: Peter Grajzl, Peter MurrellAbstract:How effective institutions come about and how they change are fundamental questions for economics and social science more generally. We show that these questions were central in the deliberations of lawyers in 17th century England, a critical historical juncture that has motivated important institutional theories. We argue that the lawyers held a conceptualization of institutional development that was remarkably Darwinian in nature, more than two centuries before Darwin's great contributions. To this end, we first identify a set of features characteristic of Darwinian evolutionary social-science theories. We then match the lawyers' own words to these features, revealing the distinctly Darwinian character of the lawyers' evolutionary model of institutional construction and change. Finally, we analyze the normative conclusions on institutional development that the lawyers drew from their evolutionary analysis.
Peter J Richerson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a Darwinian Theory of gene culture coevolution
EMPIRIA: Revista de Metodología de Ciencias Sociales, 2012Co-Authors: Peter J Richerson, Robert BoydAbstract:Resumen en: Darwin believed that his Theory of evolution would stand or fall on its ability to account for human behavior. The ideas in the Descent of Man were widel...
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the Darwinian Theory of human cultural evolution and gene culture coevolution
2010Co-Authors: Peter J Richerson, Rob BoydAbstract:Darwin realized that his Theory could have no principled exception for humans. He put the famous teaser, “Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history,” near the end of The Origin of Species. If his evolutionary account made an exception for the human species, the whole edifice might be questioned. As the Quarterly Review’s reviewer of The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex probably the long-hostile and devoutly Catholic St. George Mivart) gloated, the Descent “offers a good opportunity for reviewing his whole position” – and rejecting it (Anonymous, or St. George Mivart, 1871). Darwin apparently hoped someone else would apply Darwinism to the origin of humans. Lyell (1863), Huxley (1863), and Wallace (1864, 1869) all wrote on the subject, but their work was unsatisfactory because all three had reservations about a selectionist account of human mental evolution. Darwin’s views on the origin of humans did not rely entirely on selection but had a supplementary set of mechanisms consistent with a selectionist account.
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not by genes alone how culture transformed human evolution
2004Co-Authors: Peter J Richerson, Robert BoydAbstract:Humans are a striking anomaly in the natural world. While we are similar to other mammals in many ways, our behavior sets us apart. Our unparalleled ability to adapt has allowed us to occupy virtually every habitat on earth, and our societies are larger, more complex, and more cooperative than any other mammal's. In "Not by Genes Alone", Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd argue that only a Darwinian Theory of cultural evolution can explain these unique characteristics. "Not by Genes Alone" offers a radical interpretation of human evolution, arguing that our ecological dominance and our singular social systems stem from a psychology uniquely adapted to create complex culture. Richerson and Boyd consider culture to be essential to human adaptation, as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion. Drawing on work in the fields of anthropology, political science, sociology, and economics - and building their case with such fascinating examples as kayaks, clever knots, and yams that require twelve men to carry them - Richerson and Boyd convincingly demonstrate that culture and biology are inextricably linked. In abandoning the nature-versus-nurture debate as fundamentally misconceived, "Not by Genes Alone" is a truly original and groundbreaking Theory of the role of culture in evolution and a book to be reckoned with for generations to come.
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built for speed not for comfort Darwinian Theory and human culture
History and Philosophy of The Life Sciences, 2001Co-Authors: Peter J Richerson, Robert BoydAbstract:Darwin believed that his Theory of evolution would stand or fall on its ability to account for human behavior. No species could be an exception to his Theory without imperiling the whole edifice. The ideas in the Descent of Man were widely discussed by his contemporaries although they were far from being the only evolutionary theories current in the late nineteenth century. Darwin's specific evolutionary ideas and those of his main followers had very little impact on the social sciences as they emerged as separate disciplines in the early Twentieth Century. Not until the late twentieth century were concerted, sophisticated efforts made to apply Darwinian Theory to human behavior. Why such a long delay? We argue that Darwin's Theory was rather modern in respects that conflicted with Victorian sensibilities and that he and his few close followers failed to influence any of the social sciences. The late Twentieth Century work takes up almost exactly where James Baldwin left off at the turn of the century.
