Human Nature and the Limits of Science (Paperback)

John Dupre

ISBN 10: 019926550X / ISBN 13: 9780199265503

Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003

About this Item

Paperback. John Dupre warns that our understanding of human nature is being distorted by two faulty and harmful forms of pseudo-scientific thinking. Not just in the academic world but increasingly in everyday life, we find one set of experts seeking to explain the ends at which humans aim in terms of evolutionary theory, and another set of experts using economic models to give rules of how we act to achieve those ends. Dupre charges this unholy alliance ofevolutionary psychologists and rational-choice theorists with scientific imperialism: they use methods and ideas developed for one domain of inquiry in others where they are inappropriate. He demonstrates that thesetheorists' explanations do not work, and furthermore that if taken seriously their theories tend to have dangerous social and political consequences. For these reasons, it is important to resist scientism - an exaggerated conception of what science can be expected to do for us. To say this is in no way to be against science - just against bad science. Dupre restores sanity to the study of human nature by pointing the way to a proper understanding of humans in the societiesthat are our natural and necessary environments. He shows how our distinctively human capacities are shaped by the social contexts in which we are embedded. And he concludes with a bold challenge to one of theintellectual touchstones of modern science: the idea of the universe as causally complete and deterministic. In an impressive rehabilitation of the idea of free human agency, he argues that far from being helpless cogs in a mechanistic universe, humans are rare concentrations of causal power in a largely indeterministic world. Human Nature and the Limits of Science is a provocative, witty, and persuasive corrective to scientism. In its place, Dupre commends apluralistic approach to science, as the appropriate way to investigate a universe that is not unified in form. Anyone interested in science and human nature will enjoy this book, unless they are its targets. John Dupre warns that our understanding of human nature is being distorted by two faulty and harmful forms of pseudo-scientific thinking. Dupre demonstrates that theorists' explanations do notwork, and furthermore that if taken seriously their theories tend to have dangerous social and political consequences. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780199265503

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Human Nature and the Limits of Science (Paperback)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, Oxford
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019926550X
• ISBN 13: 9780199265503
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

John Dupré warns that our understanding of human nature is being distorted by two faulty and harmful forms of pseudo-scientific thinking. Not just in the academic world but increasingly in everyday life, we find one set of experts seeking to explain the ends at which humans aim in terms of evolutionary theory, and another set of experts using economic models to give rules of how we act to achieve those ends. Dupré demonstrates that these theorists' explanations do not work, and furthermore that if taken seriously their theories tend to have dangerous social and political consequences. For these reasons, it is important to resist scientism--an exaggerated conception of what science can be expected to do for us.
Dupré restores sanity to the study of human nature by pointing the way to a proper understanding of humans in the societies that are our natural and necessary environments. Anyone interested in science and human nature will enjoy this book, unless they are its targets.

About the Author

John Dupré is at University of Exeter.