Steve Jones, Human Nature and Belief, Wed 8 July

Evolution and society
Professor Steve Jones (University College, London, UK)

Summary: I will consider the way in which evolution can, and cannot, illuminate patterns of human society, and will suggest that its ability to do so is often overstated as the unique nature of many of our attributes makes it difficult to place them into biological context.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• darwin
• cambridge university
• darwin festival
• 2009
• evolution
• society
• professor
• steve jones
• human nature
• belief
• nature
• biology
• science

[fatandslat]

Point well taken. Evolutionary theory is enormously useful and strong, both in its explanatory power and as a organizing paradigm, across many fields. That said, there's been some less-useful work that invokes evolution, less as a scientific principle than as a powerful metaphor. Speculative work, much of it brilliant and intriguing, but some of it not much removed from thought-experiment. Jones is correct in cautioning its limitations, esp w regard to human society/culture.

[tmtyler]

I totally disagree with all this. Evolutionary theory doesn't just depend on observations based on close living relatives. There's fossils, gene sequences, adaptive fit and other relevant observations as well.