ENGLISH

Human Nature and the Limits of Science

By John Dupre

Book information

Publisher
Oxford University Press, USA
Year
2002
ISBN
9780199248063, 0199248060
LCC
BD450 .D87 2001
Open Library ID
OL3581227M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
482 kB (493658 bytes)
Pages
129\129
Time added
2010-08-30 15:18:36

Description

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 in everyday life, we find one set of experts who seek to explain the ends at which humans aim in terms of evolutionary theory, while the other set uses economic models to give rules of how we act to achieve those ends. Dupré demonstrates that these theorists' explanations do not work and 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 life will enjoy this book--unless they are its targets.

Similar books