The State of Nature: Ecology, Community, and American Social Thought, 1900-1950Although science may claim to be "objective," scientists cannot avoid the influence of their own values on their research. In The State of Nature, Gregg Mitman examines the relationship between issues in early twentieth-century American society and the sciences of evolution and ecology to reveal how explicit social and political concerns influenced the scientific agenda of biologists at the University of Chicago and throughout the United States during the first half of this century. Reacting against the view of nature "red in tooth and claw," ecologists and behavioral biologists such as Warder Clyde Allee, Alfred Emerson, and their colleagues developed research programs they hoped would validate and promote an image of human society as essentially cooperative rather than competitive. Mitman argues that Allee's religious training and pacifist convictions shaped his pioneering studies of animal communities in a way that could be generalized to denounce the view that war is in our genes. |
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Contents
Natures Many Facets | 1 |
Environmental Interactions | 10 |
Biology as Gospel | 48 |
Cooperationist Beginnings | 72 |
Population Problems | 89 |
The Integrity of the Group | 110 |
From the Biological to the Social | 146 |
Building a Cooperative World | 169 |
Redefining the Economy of Nature | 202 |
Notes | 213 |
Bibliography | 247 |
281 | |
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The State of Nature: Ecology, Community, and American Social Thought, 1900-1950 Gregg Mitman No preview available - 1992 |
Common terms and phrases
aggression Allee and Emerson Allee's American analysis animal aggregations animal behavior animal ecology argued biological biologists biotic caste Child competition cooperation Cowles Davenport democracy density developmental discussion dominance Ecological Succession ecologists ecology at Chicago effects embryology environment environmental ethics Eugenics evolution evolutionary experimental factors field folder functional genes Genetic Biology genetics geography Gerard growth heredity hierarchy homeostasis human society Ibid idem important Institute integration interactions isopods Journal Kellogg laboratory Lillie Lillie's ment metaphors Natural History natural selection Noble organicist pacifist Park patterns peace physiological plant political population population ecology Press principle problems relations reproductive response Rockefeller Foundation role Salisbury Schmidt scientific Scott Sewall Wright Shelford Social Behavior Social Darwinism social organization Sociology species struggle superorganism termite theory tion University of Chicago W. C. Allee Warder Clyde Allee WCAP Whitman World zoology zoology department