Problems and challenges of sociobiology of societies--论文代写范文精选

对未来更根本的变化影响生殖模式和实践,除了这些直接影响社会的基因组,通过基因治疗,是一场革命的开始,基因革命将尽可能多的对人类社会产生影响。下面的paper代写范文进行详述。

PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES
If the foundation for societal structures is to be found in the evolved psychology of the individual plus his physical needs and capabilities plus the link between individual and society formed by the integration of the individual and social self, the social identity theory of Tajfel and Hewitt, then brain-modification through chemicals can strike at the roots of the social system. This is why the problem of the use and misuse of heroin, cocaine, cannabis, and the new smart drugs is of importance. If drug use continues to grow - perhaps reflecting discontents with existing society - then at some point (in some places already reached) there is the possibility of disintegration of societies where drug use is most widespread. The express or implicit competition between societies will operate in favour of societies where drug use is less.

Perhaps even more fundamental for the future are changes affecting reproductive patterns and practices and beyond these directly affecting the societal genome, through gene therapy, gene screening and genetic engineering. We are "at the beginning of a revolution, the Genetic Revolution, which will have as much impact on human society as the Industrial Revolution.... Genetic engineering can achieve in a year what evolution can never achieve. As a result of human social evolution, we can accelerate biological evolution in a way that was never dreamed of before" (Russo and Cove 1995, pp. vii, 193). "In principle the possibilities for genetic engineering are almost limitless. Organisms might be made with any mix and match of desired characteristics... Humans and mice share the overwhelming majority of all their genes... differences... which seem so great to us, probably depend mainly on quite small differences in the relative timing of developmental programs which use the same genes... potential for good or evil" (Williams, Ceccarelli and Spurr 1993, 118). "Do we want to change humankind?... We should make it clear that it is not yet possible, mainly for technical reasons, to transform human cells genetically. But what is not possible today can be possible next year or in five years" (Russo and Cove 1995, 212).

The new eugenics is totally different from the old eugenics, which culminated in Social Darwinism and worse, but it is still eugenics, the direct attempt to improve the societal genome. An active debate is in progress about the ethical aspects of genetic manipulation but if in fact societies are in competition with one another, then it seems inevitable that at some time (perhaps not distant) in some society (already some possible candidates) the extreme possibilities of genetic engineering will be exploited driven also by commercial factors: "The pharmaceutical industry has discovered a new Eldorado" (1995, p. 119). The potentials of gene therapy are immense: there are some 2000 different diseases caused by a defect in one or more genes. In the future "Do you have cancer? Take the pill with the normal gene. Inject yourself with the gene for HIV immunity. All these are still dreams but there are thousands of serious scientists in dozens of new gene therapy companies who are working to make these dreams come true" (1995, p. 114).

Natural selection of societies may seem to proceed slowly but in fact it is extremely rapid, both historically and immeasurably more so when considered on an evolutionary timescale.

A SOCIOBIOLOGY OF SOCIETIES
Such might be the basis for constructing a sociobiology of societies extending E.O. Wilson's interpretation: "Sociobiology is defined as the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior.... One of the functions of sociobiology... is to reformulate the foundations of the social sciences in a way that draws these subjects into the Modern [evolutionary] Synthesis" (1975, p. 4) to arrive at "the blending of biology and the social sciences... the two cultures... will be joined at last... This concern is the deep structure of human nature, an essentially biological phenomenon that is also the primary focus of the humanities" (1978, p. 10). There are objections to such an idea which present themselves, for example:

The search for order or direction in history is a mirage.
To treat nations as competing organisms, or superorganisms, is stretching a metaphor much too far. It blurs the idea of organism.
To talk about nations or societies being in competition with each other and being subject to natural selection at this level is again a misuse of the language of evolutionary biology. It is a reversion essentially to eugenics, Social Darwinism, Nazi racial theory and so on.
Nations and societies are not extinguished but change and adapt. They do not reproduce or genetically mutate; they do not bud or have a life-cycle.
Williams, Hamilton and Dawkins have argued effectively that evolution is about the survival of genes, not of phenotypes or groups or societies. The ant society is an expression of special genetic and reproductive features of ants and has nothing to do with the quite different reproductive patterns of humans. But is the same true for all social insects? "Group selection... is particularly applicable to polygyne ant and wasp colonies with unrelated queens" (Brian 1983, p. 245)and Helena Cronin's careful consideration of the matter: "But there are problems. the main one is that termites don't seem to behave as predicted. They appear to dispense altruism to kin regardless of sex; both males and females act as sterile helpers and no evidence has yet been found that either sex biases its good deeds in favour of its own sex. There's also the problem that only some termites have 'giant sex chromosomes' and there is nothing special about the social behavior of those that do.... this list of misgivings" (1991, p. 297).
Group selection is a heresy which has been effectively destroyed, despite attempts to revive it. You neglect the solid basis of theory of altruism, reciprocal altruism etc linked directly to the propagation of genes.
Predicting evolutionary future from the evolutionary past is the sheerest speculation. Evolution has no direction or purpose. It is even less credible to use a pseudo-evolutionary approach to speculate about the future of human societies, in general or specifically.
Such discussion of societies and nations is dangerous, can be misused and certainly will be misused.
The forms of cultural change are not genetic but symbolic, the creation of human minds and not of DNA.
It would take too long to argue these points in depth - the debates are in progress in other places - but the following are quick responses that may be made:

CONCLUDING
A final comment: part of the resistance to the idea of a sociobiology of societies, a group sociobiology, flows from the emphasis on the 'selfish gene' and the semi-mathematical theories elaborated to reconcile the gene as the only unit of selection: inclusive fitness, kinship selection, reciprocal altruism, game theories of cooperation, cheaters and so on. Originators of some of these ideas (e.g. the Prisoner's Dilemma) have begun to see the inadequacy or inapplicability of them for human society, however necessary or appropriate they may be for other species: "the intellectual fascination of the Prisoner's Dilemma may have led us to overestimate its evolutionary importance" (Maynard Smith and Szathmary 1995, 261). 

The definition of 'gene' used in these theories is variable or questionable: "A unit of natural selection may be something else altogether, and at the very least is likely to be a combination of genes rather than one specific one. In other words, both Dawkins and Wilson take a word with a highly specific biological meaning, and use it with a very much vaguer, and ultimately indefinable (except circularly) meaning" (Hayes 1995, p. 149), the trajectory from gene to behavior (via an immensely complex neural system) is hypothetical: "there are no genes specifically for human behaviors -- species-typical movement patterns excepted.... There can be no such thing as a generalized reproduction-maximizer mechanism because there is no general, undeniably effective way to maximize reproduction" (Symons 1992, p. 139). 

The attempt to bring the very special features of human behavior and human society under theories essentially developed for other animal species may be misguided: "Most of the differences between species among the millions of multicellular animals are probably in discriminations, choices and actions, which are products of the brain, not in skeleton, skin and other organs" (Bullock 1993, p. 95); "measurements of the percent of genomic difference [between humans and other primates] cannot reveal what the crucial differences are.... some writers indulge in an unscientific distortion or shrinkage of scale of degree of complexity in comments similar to these: 'chimpanzees, too, are self-conscious, witness their behavior with a mirror... they cooperate, they communicate, it's all a matter of degree'.... it is precisely the degree of differences between other species and the one that writes poems, recognizes a myriad shades of emotion, fabricates artifacts by the million, invents an infinity of recipes and musical pieces, dances in countless styles, supports libraries, prisons, mental hospitals, universities and wars, that makes it worthwhile the attention of biologists" (Bullock 1993, p. 90). Human sociobiology and the sociobiology of human societies, while it can make use of theory and research derived from other species, must come to grips with the radical differences created by the human possession of language as a societal instrument, and the massive intellectual development consequent on language, something emphasized by Charles Darwin in the Descent of Man (1871, Part I, p. 57).(paper代写)

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