Description
Book SynopsisElaborates on author's pioneering work on developmental systems by spelling out that work's implications for the fields of evolutionary theory, developmental and social psychology, feminism, and epistemology.
Trade Review“Oyama writes elegantly and from a deep intellectual base. This alternative view to the dominant genetic determinism will be of interest to all who seek a more complex view of human nature. It is an excellent book, beautifully composed.”—Katherine Nelson, City University of New York
“Susan Oyama's
Ontogeny of Information provided a navigational chart for researchers seeking to avoid the shoals of the nature-nurture dichotomy. Here, in
Evolution's Eye, she good-humoredly unmasks the rhetorical stratagems of reflexive genecentrism, while continuing to strengthen the case for the integrative, multifocal approach of developmental systems theory.”—Helen E. Longino, University of Minnesota
“To think of nature and nurture as two distinct categories is not only wrong, Susan Oyama convincingly argues, but doing so hobbles our attempts to understand the nature of development and evolution at every level. Hers is a voice that needs to be heard.”—Evelyn Fox Keller, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1: Looking at Development and Evolution
Transmission and Construction: Levels and the Problem of Heredity
What Does the Phenocopy Copy? Originals and Fakes in Biology
Ontogeny and the Central Dogma: Do We Need the Concept of Genetic
Programming in Order to Have an Evolutionary Perspective?
Stasis, Development, and Heredity: Models of Stability and Change
The Accidental Chordate: Contingency in Developmental Systems
Part 2: Looking at Ourselves Essentialism, Women, and War: Protesting Too Much, Protesting Too
Little
The Conceptualization of Nature: Nature as Design
Bodies and Minds: Dualism in Evolutionary Theory
How Shall I Name Thee? The Construction of Natural Selves
Evolutionary and Developmental Formation: Politics of the Boundary
Notes
References
Index
