El legado de Darwin: Qué significa hoy la evolución

Por John Dupré

Este libro sostiene que la teoría formulada por Darwin tiene consecuencias trascendentales para nuestra visión de nosotros mismos y de nuestro lugar en el universo. Y explica, con un lenguaje sencillo y claro, el alcance y los límites de dicha teoría, sus implicaciones sobre el mundo religioso, las ideas de raza y género o el estatus de los animales, precisando, también, los marcos del debate entre biología y cultura, y la decisiva importancia de ésta para comprender la conducta humana. Todos aquellos interesados en entender qué puede y qué no puede explicar la teoría de la evolución encontrarán aquí una magnífica introducción al tema.

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Katz Editores
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 1 feb 2006
• ISBN: 9789871283187

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Comentarios para El legado de Darwin

[setnahkt · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

Philosopher John Dupré is yet another of the long list of philosophers weighing in on evolution. He’s not as extreme as David Stove, allowing that there is such a thing as evolution - in fact, he does some service by noting that the phrase “the Theory of Evolution” is better replaced by “evolution theory” – but takes the same line as Stove on sociobiology/evolutionary psychology. The whole book comes across as being written by what Michael Shermer called a “cognitive creationist” – a person of basically leftist political tendencies who is full of praise for evolution when it is used as a counter to religion, but suddenly turns fundamentalist when evolutionary psychology comes up.
In that regard, Dupré devotes an entire chapter to “the decline of theism” as effected by Charles Darwin, stating that this is “the greatest significance” of Darwin’s work. Not our understanding of biology, but the destruction of any credibility for any religious belief. Then the remainder of the book takes on sociobiology/evolutionary psychology, which Dupré has the temerity to call “pseudoscience”. Dupré’s dismissal of evolutionary psychology ironically depends on the same type of rhetoric used by “creation scientists” – he sets up and knock over a series of straw men, deliberatly mischaracterizes evolutionary psychology’s arguments, and smugly implies that the field is in disrepute. My counter is simple – a book which argues that genetics has no effect on human behavior but never mentions twin studies cannot be taken seriously.