Details Containing Books Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior

Title:Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior
Author:Elliott Sober
Book Format:Paperback
Book Edition:First Edition
Pages:Pages: 416 pages
Published:October 1st 1999 by Harvard University Press (first published 1998)
Categories:Psychology. Biology. Evolution. Philosophy. Science. Anthropology. Nonfiction
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Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior Paperback | Pages: 416 pages
Rating: 3.83 | 88 Users | 10 Reviews

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No matter what we do, however kind or generous our deeds may seem, a hidden motive of selfishness lurks--or so science has claimed for years. This book, whose publication promises to be a major scientific event, tells us differently. In Unto Others philosopher Elliott Sober and biologist David Sloan Wilson demonstrate once and for all that unselfish behavior is in fact an important feature of both biological and human nature. Their book provides a panoramic view of altruism throughout the animal kingdom--from self-sacrificing parasites to insects that subsume themselves in the superorganism of a colony to the human capacity for selflessness--even as it explains the evolutionary sense of such behavior.

Explaining how altruistic behavior can evolve by natural selection, this book finally gives credence to the idea of group selection that was originally proposed by Darwin but denounced as heretical in the 1960s. With their account of this controversy, Sober and Wilson offer a detailed case study of scientific change as well as an indisputable argument for group selection as a legitimate theory in evolutionary biology.

Unto Others also takes a novel evolutionary approach in explaining the ultimate psychological motives behind unselfish human behavior. Developing a theory of the proximate mechanisms that most likely evolved to motivate adaptive helping behavior, Sober and Wilson show how people and perhaps other species evolved the capacity to care for others as a goal in itself.

A truly interdisciplinary work that blends biology, philosophy, psychology, and anthropology, this book will permanently change not just our view of selfless behavior but also our understanding of many issues in evolutionary biology and the social sciences.

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Original Title: Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior
ISBN: 0674930479 (ISBN13: 9780674930476)
Edition Language: English

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Ratings: 3.83 From 88 Users | 10 Reviews

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Group FitnessThe main idea of the first part of the book is that altruism is a quality, in an evolutionary sense, that enhances a group's ability to survive. Do groups operate and evolve as if they are single organism in the same logical sense that plants and animals evolve and operate as a collection of differentiated cells? Certainly some groups have maintained coherent stability for long periods of time. However the majority of evolutionary biologists, which include such luminaries as Richard

The authors challenge a prevailing view that discounts the role of the group in the evolution of altruism (i.e., individuals act for the good of the group). Given the emphasis on the "selfish gene" in modern evolutionary theory, the challenge is to explain our clearly evident altruistic behavior. (1)Drawing from Darwins observations in The Descent of Man, the authors believe that altruism evolved through inter-group competition. The group that had the strongest cooperative tendencies (including

Is there empirical, biological, and evolutionary justification that mankind acts with unselfish behavior? The authors approach the subject of human altruism and the biological advantages of multilevel (group) selection vis-a-vis human egoism, hedonism, anti-functionalism, and individual functionalism from an interdisciplinary, but primarily evolutionary, approach.The first half of the book deals with biology, genetics, and anthropology that provide the empirical grounds and logical inferences

A very important exploration of the role of group selection and individual motivation as creative forces in evolution, where they have widely been considered unimportant for many decades. This book refutes the major counter-arguments to group level selection and proposes a useful way of evaluating how and why various traits have evolved.

This book was the voice in the wilderness when group selection was in the academic penitentiary.

My cousin Elliott's book! Brilliant!