Search results for "sociobiology"
showing 4 items of 4 documents
Kin and multilevel selection in social evolution: a never-ending controversy?
2016
Kin selection and multilevel selection are two major frameworks in evolutionary biology that aim at explaining the evolution of social behaviors. However, the relationship between these two theories has been plagued by controversy for almost half a century and debates about their relevance and usefulness in explaining social evolution seem to rekindle at regular intervals. Here, we first provide a concise introduction into the kin selection and multilevel selection theories and shed light onto the roots of the controversy surrounding them. We then review two major aspects of the current debate: the presumed formal equivalency of the two theories and the question whether group selection can …
Blending the Erotic and the Divine in Mystical Literature
2004
THE BEGINNINGS OF SYMBOLIC-RELIGIOUS COGNITION - Cognitive Archeology and Cognitive Fluidity: About 30,000 years ago (70,000 years after the fossil records of the anatomically modern human), religious thought and symbolic conceptual activity arose from the capacity of integrating specific-domain a process called "cognitive fluidity" (Mithen 1996). Metaphor, Anthropomorphism and Cognitive Science: Metaphor is a basic mental capacity by which people understand themselves and the world around them through conceptual mappings of knowledge between mental spaces, using everyday knowledge to reason about more abstract concepts. Of all the templates for supernatural concepts, the ones that seriousl…
Brain, Sociobiology, and Evolution in Primates
1981
Socialization in primates can be understood essentially as a function of the information processing ability of the CNS, which can be roughly measured in terms of relative brain size in closely related species groups. Both the cephalization constant (Hemmer 1971, 1974) and the extra neuron number (Jerison 1964, 1973) may be used for relevant quantification, as there is a highly significant correlation of both parameters in primates (7 ape species: r = 0.97, 20 Old World monkey species: r = 0.99; Hemmer 1978). The author has shown in a previous paper (Hemmer 1979) close negative correlations of relative brain size and the social organization as expressed in troop size (r = −0.92) and of relat…
The Naturist Constellation in Europe
2013
The present study introduces some reflections on possible approaches to the phenomenon of naturism. Our investigation starts from the main consideration that this phenomenon is now transiting from its subcultural and countercultural origin—that depended on the history of Western countries—to a new stage of consumption and legalization.