Sex, Gender, Ethics and the Darwinian Evolution of Mankind examines the impact of Darwin’s Descent of Man on contemporary biology and the humanities.
Its publication in 1871 was a founding event in anthropology. Its content was primarily concerned with the development of sexual life, social life and intellectual life, not only as outcomes of evolution, but as components that have actively intermixed over time with the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection. The stamp of Darwinism on modern thought is still very important and brings novelties to academic studies. Several fields influenced by Darwinian anthropology developed in recent decades, including evolutionary ethics, the evolution of sociality and sexual communication in animal and plant species. Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology are topics that draw heavily on Darwin’s Descent of Man. The understanding of Darwin’s thought has also progressed greatly in recent decades, following the systematic study of Darwin’s correspondence and notebooks, leading to a reassessment of the development of his thought on humans, social groups and heredity, and how they come together in his theory of evolution.
The book combines a historical perspective on Darwin’s achievement and his legacy. It will be of interest to students and scholars in a variety of fields, from experimental biology to the social and historical sciences.
Sex, Gender, Ethics, and the Darwinian Evolution of Humanity examines the impact of Darwin's ‘Descent of Man’ on contemporary biology and the humanities.
1. Darwin and the Descent of Man: Great Revolutionary but No Rebel
2. Reason and Morality in the Descent of Man
3. Virtues According to Darwin: An Unfinished and Challenging Journey 150
Years Later
4. Selections and Analogies in Darwins Origin of Species (1859) and Descent
of Man (1871)
5. Sexual Selection, By Jean Gayon. An Interview with Victor Petit
6. What Distinctions are Usefully Drawn Today Between Natural and Sexual
Selection?
7. Sexual Selection, Aesthetic Choice, and Agency
8. Natural Selection and the Proportion of the Sexes: The Two Conflicting
Versions (1871 and 1874)
9. Darwins Model of Sex Ratio Evolution in the First Edition of Descent of
Man and His Mysterious Retraction in the Second
10. Darwins Retraction on Natural Selection and Sexes in the Descent of Man:
A Case Study of Darwins Use of Statistical Methodology to Advance His
Evolutionary Ideas
11. How Darwin Dismissed His Own Discoveries About Inbreeding and Sex Ratio
12. Darwin on the African Ancestry of Humans. Deduction and Intuition
13. Darwins Descent, Prehistoric Archaeology, and the Origin of Gender
14. As Man Advances in Civilisation: Darwin on the Expanding Circle of
Moral Regard, From His Day to Ours
15. Psychology and Social Sciences: Darwinism within the Limits of Simple
Reason?
16. Evolutionary Psychology from the Descent of Man To Generalized Darwinism
Michel Veuille is Honorary Professor at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences Lettres (PSL), France, Chair of Integrative Population Biology. As a geneticist he studied sexual selection, then worked in molecular population genetics under the direction of Richard Lewontin. His research focused on the molecular characterization of natural selection in populations. As a historian he worked with Jean Gayon on the history of population genetics.
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