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Home > The Evolutionary Approach to the Social Sciences
Conversation : MIND

The Evolutionary Approach to the Social Sciences

A talk by John Tooby [9.30.09]

The modern social sciences are built on an Aristotlean blank slate foundation. On the Aristotlean view the mind is like a tape recorder or video recorder assumes: the mechanisms of recording (learning) do not impart any content of their own to the signal that it absorbs our mental content is therefore wholly supplied by the senses, especially from social sources (culture). Basing the social sciences on the mistaken theory that the mind is like a blank slate was a fundamental error that has kept the social sciences from being as fully successful as the natural sciences.

The Evolutionary Approach to the Social Sciences [1]

JOHN TOOBY is the founder of the field of Evolutionary Psychology. He is he co-director of UCSB's Center for Evolutionary Psychology.

BACK TO EVENT PAGE: DARWIN IN CHILE [2]

Links:
[1] https://www.edge.org/conversation/john_tooby-the-evolutionary-approach-to-the-social-sciences
[2] http://www.edge.org/events/darwin-in-chile