Killer apes, naked apes, & just plain nasty people : the misuse and abuse of science in politics /
In Killer Apes, Naked Apes, and Just Plain Nasty People, anthropologist Richard J. Perry delivers a scathing critique of determinism. Exploring the historical context and enduring popularity of the movement over the past century and a half, he debunks the facile and the reductionist thinking of so m...
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| Language: | English |
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Baltimore, Maryland :
Johns Hopkins University Press,
2015.
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Table of Contents:
- Introduction. Where are we going with this? There's a history here
- What's in a word.
- 1. Don't get me started. Humans and "Nature"
- It wasn't always about biology
- But maybe they really are different!
- It's all uphill from here
- Romantic supremacy
- Philosophical biology
- Biological stories.
- 2, Eugenics: Bad people, good people, better people. The right sorts of people
- What's to be done?
- Parasites and pests
- Manipulating biology
- The gift of IQ
- Boas and "Fixed Traits"
- Out with eugenics, for now; but we still have IQ!
- 3. Killer apes, naked apes, and just plain nasty people. Enter the killer apes...
- Followed by the naked ape...
- Followed by nasty people
- It gets worse
- A serious flaw in the argument
- I know, but it still seems real
- Back to eugenics.
- 4. Mind games. Social programs? Not so fast
- Seeing double
- Wait - What were those scores again?
- You say heritability, I say inheritance - Let's call the whole thing off
- Let's get that social ranking straight
- Nothing if not persistent
- Twins, again!
- Hot air from Canada and from across the Pond
- Everyone needs a friend.
- 5. Sociobiology: A new science of the same old thing. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise"
- Edward, have you met Herbert?
- Quiet...I think the genes are up to something
- What's good for the goose
- Wait...Are we still doing science?
- Pull up a chair; It's story time
- The generic "Primitive"
- Americans and Brits: The generic humans
- A genetic guide to behavior.
- 6. And yet another new science of the same old thing. It blinded them with science
- It takes a village
- Making the exotic familiar, and the familiar genetic
- Waltz of the pseudohypotheses
- What's with the big brain, anyway?
- What, indeed?
- 7. That's just about enough of that. "When wild in the woods the noble savage ran"
- Steven - You look as if you've seen a ghost
- Calm down; It's only an abstraction
- Are you still here?
- What's the big deal?
- What's the score so far?
- Some things we do know about the Pleistocene
- Going off script
- Battle of the sexes?
- A word about ethnography.
- 8. It's not that simple. So what's the alternative?
- Ah, tradition
- Somehow it all fits.
- 9. What's the agenda? Solutions that cause problems
- The beat goes on
- Reflections on the mystique of science.