Gebraucht kaufen
10,91 €
GRATIS Lieferung 10. - 17. Juni. Details
Gebraucht: Gut | Details
Verkauft von ThriftBooks-Chicago USA
Zustand: Gebraucht: Gut
Bild des Kindle App-Logos

Lade die kostenlose Kindle-App herunter und lese deine Kindle-Bücher sofort auf deinem Smartphone, Tablet oder Computer – kein Kindle-Gerät erforderlich.

Mit Kindle für Web kannst du sofort in deinem Browser lesen.

Scanne den folgenden Code mit deiner Mobiltelefonkamera und lade die Kindle-App herunter.

QR-Code zum Herunterladen der Kindle App

Dem Autor folgen

Edward O. Wilson
+ Folgen
Weitere Bücher von diesem Autor
Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten. Wiederhole die Anfrage später noch einmal.

The Social Conquest of Earth: Ausgezeichnet mit dem Wissensbuch des Jahres 2013 Taschenbuch – 15. April 2013

Englisch Ausgabe von Edward O. Wilson (Autor)
Alle Formate und Editionen anzeigen
In asking where we came from, what we are and where we are going, Edward O. Wilson directly addresses three fundamental questions of religion, philosophy and science. In this book, Wilson presents us with the clearest explanation ever produced as to the origin of the human condition and why it resulted in our domination of the Earth's biosphere.
Mehr lesen Weniger lesen
Previous page
  1. Buch 1 von 3
    The Anthropocene Epoch
  2. Seitenzahl der Print-Ausgabe
    352 Seiten
  3. Sprache
    Englisch
  4. Herausgeber
    Norton & Company
  5. Erscheinungstermin
    15. April 2013
  6. Abmessungen
    13.97 x 2.29 x 21.08 cm
  7. ISBN-10
    0871403633
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0871403636
  9. Alle Details anzeigen
Next page

Produktbeschreibungen

Pressestimmen

E. O. Wilson's passionate curiosity--the hallmark of his remarkable career--has led him to these urgent reflections on the human condition. At the core of The Social Conquest of Earth is the unresolved, unresolvable tension in our species between selfishness and altruism. Wilson brilliantly analyzes the force, at once creative and destructive, of our biological inheritance and daringly advances a grand theory of the origins of human culture. This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in the intersection of science and the humanities.--Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

I just finished The Social Conquest of Earth, a fabulous book.--President Bill Clinton "New York Times"

Wilson has done an impressive job of pulling all this evidence together and analyzing it. His interdisciplinary approach, his established scholarship, and his willingness to engage hot-button issues are all much in evidence in The Social Conquest of Earth.... His reflections on this subject are varied, original, and thought provoking--as is the rest of his book.--Carl Coon "The Humanist"

Wilson is a brilliant stylist, and his account of the rise of Homo sapiens and our species' conquest of Earth is informative, thrilling, and utterly captivating.--Rudy M. Baum "Chemical & Engineering News"

Wilson offers a full explanation of his latest thinking on evolution. . . . The book is bound to stir controversy on these and other subjects for years to come.--Sandra Upson and Anna Kuchment "Scientific American"

With his probing curiosity, his dazzling research, his elegant prose and his deep commitment to bio-diversity, Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist (The Ants) and novelist (The Anthill) Edward O. Wilson has spent his life searching for the evolutionary paths by which humans developed and passed along the social behaviors that best promote the survival of our species. His eloquent, magisterial and compelling new book offers a kind of summing-up of his magnificent career.... While not everyone will agree with Wilson's provocative and challenging conclusions, everyone who engages with his ideas will discover sparkling gems of wisdom uncovered by the man who is our Darwin and our Thoreau.--Henry L. Carrigan, Jr. "BookPage.com"

A huge, deep, thrilling work, presenting a radically new but cautiously hopeful view of human evolution, human nature, and human society. No one but E. O. Wilson could bring together such a brilliant synthesis of biology and the humanities, to shed light on the origins of language, religion, art, and all of human culture.--Oliver Sacks

A monumental exploration of the biological origins of the Human Condition!--James D. Watson

Once again, Ed Wilson has written a book combining the qualities that have brought his previous books Pulitzer Prizes and millions of readers: a big but simple question, powerful explanations, magisterial knowledge of the sciences and humanities, and beautiful writing understandable to a wide public.--Jared Diamond, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs and Steel

Über den Autor und weitere Mitwirkende

Edward O. Wilson (1929-2021) was the author of more than thirty books, including Anthill, Letters to a Young Scientist, and The Conquest of Nature. The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, Wilson was a professor emeritus at Harvard University and lived with his wife in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Produktinformation

  • Herausgeber ‏ : ‎ Norton & Company; Reprint Edition (15. April 2013)
  • Sprache ‏ : ‎ Englisch
  • Taschenbuch ‏ : ‎ 352 Seiten
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0871403633
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0871403636
  • Abmessungen ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 2.29 x 21.08 cm
  • Kundenrezensionen:

Informationen zum Autor

Folge Autoren, um Neuigkeiten zu Veröffentlichungen und verbesserte Empfehlungen zu erhalten.
Edward O. Wilson

Edward O. Wilson

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Entdecke mehr Bücher des Autors, sieh dir ähnliche Autoren an, lies Autorenblogs und mehr

Kundenrezensionen

4,5 von 5 Sternen
4,5 von 5
763 weltweite Bewertungen

Spitzenbewertungen aus Deutschland

PUNKARI YRJÖ M
5,0 von 5 Sternen The Social Conquest of Earth
Rezension aus Deutschland vom 1. Dezember 2020
Verifizierter Kauf
The book was fine until Wilson start to write human sociality. Eusociality is known since 1966 and as a concept of sociality it is useful. But it is not sufficient to account human sociality which as cultural system belongs to different level.
Nützlich
 Melden
Matthias Berg
5,0 von 5 Sternen Funktionierende Gruppen als Erfolgsgeheimnis des Homo Sapiens
Rezension aus Deutschland vom 16. Juni 2012
E.O. Wilson, der "Vater der Soziobiologie", hat es nie gescheut, im Zentrum von Kontroversen zu stehen, im Gegenteil. In den Siebizigern war er der Buhmann für alle "linken" Wissenschaftler, da er es gewagt hatte, das herrschende Paradigma der fast unendlichen Formbarkeit des Menschen anzugreifen, und die menschliche Natur in der Biologie zu verankern.
2010 stand er wieder im Zentrum einer Kontroverse, als über hundert Wissenschaftler öffentlich gegen einen Aufsatz protestierten, den er zusammen mit den Mathematikerm Nowak und Tarnita verfasst hatte, und in dem es um das Thema der Eusozialität ging. War Wilson in den Siebzigern noch der Wegbereiter der Theorie der Egoistischen Gene à la Richard Dawkins, so wird ihm nun vorgeworfen, hinter seine eigenen Einsichten von vor 40 Jahren zurückgefallen zu sein, und etwas längst überholtes wie die Theorie der Gruppenselektion aus der Mottenkiste geholt zu haben.

Das vorliegende Buch ist die weit gespannte Anwendung dieser Theorie der Gruppenselektion (oder multilevel selction, wie es technisch korrekt heißt) auf die Evolution des Menschen. Als ich vor vielen Jahren die Bücher von Dawkins las, da war für mich klar: Gruppenselektion ist Quatsch. In letzter Zeit dagegen habe ich einiges gelesen, das mich zum Anhänger dieser weithin diskreditierten Theorie gemacht hat: Sober/ D.S. Wilson (mit dem E.O. Wilson nicht verwandt): "Unto Others"; S. Bowles/ H.Gintis: "A Cooperative Species" und schließlich das vorliegende Buch.

Der Autor beschreibt erst einmal ziemlich ausführlich die Eusozialität bei Insekten, und kommt zu dem Schluss, dass die Mitglieder einer Kolonie nicht als "Mitspieler" im struggle for life anzusehen sind, sondern letztlich den Phänotyp der Königin bilden. Dieser Teil des Buches ist ziemlich technisch, und für Leute, die mit der Materie nicht voll und ganz vertraut sind, kaum zu verstehen (auch ich habe nicht alle Details nachvollziehen können).

Obgleich Wilson auch den Menschen "eusozial" nennt, macht er doch im Weiteren klar, dass es große Unterschiede zwischen einer Ameisenkolonie und einer Gruppe von Menschen gibt. Während eine Insektenkolonie tatsächlich eine einzige "unit of selection" darstellt, ist die Sache bei Menschen zwiegespalten, da hier zwei Selektionsebenen in einem Spannungsverhältnis stehen: Die Ebene des Individuums, und jene der Gruppe. Die Krux ist: was gut für den Einzelnen ist, läuft oft genug den INteressen der Gruppe entgegen. Und damit eine Gruppe überhaupt eine "unit of selection" bilden kann, muss es ihr gelingen , die Einzelinteressen ihrer Mitglieder weitgehend zu neutralisieren bzw. in den Dienst des Großen Ganzen stellen. Dieses Spannungsverhältnis steht im Zentrum des "Social conquest of Earth", denn nur Menschen in funktioniernden Gruppen konnten sich derart ausbreiten, wie der Homo sapiens es tat, wobei die Gruppen immer vom inneren Zerfall bedroht waren, und einsame Egoisten haben vielleicht heute in der modernen Welt große Entfaltungsmöglichkeiten, unter Bedingungen der Steinzeit dagegen hatten Egoisten einen schweren Stand, da sie mit Sanktionen durch sozial gesinnte Gruppenmitglieder rechnen mussten.

Der m.E. zentrale Absatz findet sich auf S.243:
"..an iron rule exists in genetic social evolution.It is that selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, while groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals. The victory can never be complete; the balance of selection pressures cannot move to either extreme. If individual selection were to dominate, societies would dissolve. If group selection were to dominate, human groups would come to ressemble ant colonies."

Ich kann dieses Buch nur empfehlen, denn es beschreibt sehr gut die Hintergründe der gespaltenen Natur des Menschen, die egoistisch und altruistisch zugleich ist, und wie die Dynamik dieser zwei Seiten sich in der Geschichte manifestiert(e).
20 Personen fanden diese Informationen hilfreich
Nützlich
 Melden
Dag Stomberg
5,0 von 5 Sternen A New History of Evolution
Rezension aus Deutschland vom 6. April 2012
A narrative explaining a lot of material about anthropology and social psychology.
Dr. E. O. Wilson gives the accent of Homo sapiens from origin to present-day
achievements.

This book is a very important new history of animal and human evolution.

Asking, why does advanced social life exist? Where do we come from? How about,
the forces of social evolution! What are we? Where are we going?

Greatly recommended!

Dag Stomberg
St Andrews, Scotland
5 Personen fanden diese Informationen hilfreich
Nützlich
 Melden
Featherless Biped
1,0 von 5 Sternen A hero falls from grace
Rezension aus Deutschland vom 25. Januar 2013
Wilson has always been one of my heros--not only an outstanding biologist, but one of the tiny and vanishing minority of intellectuals who at least dares to hint at the truth others studiously avoid.

I found sections with the usual incisive commentary (though nothing really new or interesting if you have read his other works and are up on biology in general) in the often stilted prose that is his hallmark, but was quite surprised that the core of the book is his rejection of inclusive fitness (which has been a mainstay of evolutionary biology for over 40 years) in favor of group selection. One assumes that coming from him and published in major peer reviewed journals like Nature, it must be a substantial advance in spite of the fact that I knew group selection had always been nearly universally rejected due to its basic conflict with our understanding of evolutionary biology.

I have read all the reviews here and on the net and many have good comments but the one I most wanted to see was that by renowned science writer and evolutionary biologist
Richard Dawkins. Unlike most of those by professionals, which are in journals only available to those with access to a university, it is readily available on the net.

Sadly one finds a devastating rejection of the book and some of the most trenchant commentary on a scientific colleague I have ever seen from Dawkins--exceeding anything I recall
even in his many exchanges with late and unlamented demagogue and pseudoscientist Stephan Jay Gould. Although Gould was infamous for his personal attacks on his Harvard colleague
Wilson, Dawkins notes that much of this book reminds one uncomfortably of Goulds frequent lapses into "bland, unfocussed ecumenicalism".

Dawkins points out that Wilson's 2010 paper in Nature was almost universally rejected by over 140 biologists who responded with letters and that there is not one word about this in
Wilson's book. Nor does Wilson correct this in his public lectures. There is no choice but to agree with Dawkin's trenchant comment "For Wilson not to acknowledge that he speaks for himself against the great majority of his professional colleagues is--it pains me to say this of a lifelong hero --an act of wanton arrogance." I feel like one of the stunned people one sees on TV being interviewed after the nice man next door, who has been babysitting everyone's children for 30 years, is exposed as a serial killer.

Dawkins also points out (once again) that inclusive fitness is entailed by (i.e.,logically follows from) neodarwinism and cannot be rejected without rejecting evolution itself. Wilson again reminds us of Gould, who denounced creationists from one side of his mouth while giving them comfort by spewing endless ultraliberal marxist tinged gibberish about spandrels,punctuated equilibrium and evolutionary psychology from the other. The vagueness of group and multilevel selection is just what the softminded want to enable them to escape
rational thinking in their endless antiscientific postmodernist word salads.

It is rare that scientists responding to devastating criticism actually admit their mistakes and Wilson and his Harvard math colleages, who wrote the now infamous trash paper in the famous journal Nature in 2010 (you can also do yourself a favor by avoiding Martin Nowak's books),are no exception, failing to respond in any meaningful way in their replies.

Worse yet, Wilson's book is a poorly thought out and sloppily written mess full of nonsequiturs, vague ramblings, confusions and incoherence. A good review that details some of these is that by graduate student Gerry Carter which you can find on the net. Wilson is also out of touch with our current understanding of evolutionary psychology (EP)(see e.g., the last 300 pages of Pinker's "The Better Angels of our Nature"). If you want a serious account of social evolution and some relevant EP from a
biological standpoint see Principles of Social Evolution by Andrew F.G. Bourke,or a not quite so serious and admittedly flawed and rambling account but a must read nevertheless by Robert Trivers--The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life and older but still current and penetrating works such as The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition by Robert Axelrod and The Biology of Moral Systems by Richard Alexander.

I see no point in repeating others comments so I will end with a remark I recall reading a half century ago--I think by the famous philosopher Bertrand Russell--
that one can find even in the best minds a "nest of furry caterpillars". We have now seen Wilson's and it is not a pretty sight.
16 Personen fanden diese Informationen hilfreich
Nützlich
 Melden

Spitzenrezensionen aus anderen Ländern

Alle Rezensionen ins Deutsche übersetzen
ralunicol
5,0 von 5 Sternen du grand E.Wilson
Rezension aus Frankreich vom 9. Juli 2023
Verifizierter Kauf
un plaisir à lire comme toujours dans le cas de E.Wilson
Melden
Amazon Customer
5,0 von 5 Sternen Great one. And I mean "great".
Rezension aus Kanada am 29. Mai 2017
Verifizierter Kauf
This is an amazing book. In 1975, E. O. Wilson wrote a book that made an era. This one is certainly not as thorough in studying its topic, but I think it will also eventually be seen as having made an essential contribution in evolutionary biology. After decades of ignoring group selection and multilevel selection in favoring "genes" or "egoism" as unit of selection, Wilson now presents irrefutable arguments in favor of both multilevel and especially or specifically group selection. The merit of such a broader approach is clear: it explains with much more ease numerous behaviors that the egotistic perspective pained in explaining. I cannot recommend enough this book. Every one interested in biology and evolution should have it. Written in 2012, we're just starting to feel its impact on the field.
Eine Person fand diese Informationen hilfreich
 Melden
dominic
5,0 von 5 Sternen brilliant
Rezension aus Indien vom 28. August 2018
Verifizierter Kauf
E. O. Wilson at his usual brilliant self.
Melden
A. D. Thibeault
5,0 von 5 Sternen A Brief Summary and Review
Rezension aus den Vereinigten Staaten vom 6. April 2012
Verifizierter Kauf
*A full summary of this book is available here:  An Executive Summary of Edward O. Wilson's 'The Social Conquest of Earth'

The main argument: Since the dawn of self-awareness we human beings have struggled to understand ourselves. This struggle has found form in religion, philosophy, art and, most recently, science. The most pivotal turning point in science's quest to understand humanity came with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection in the mid 19th century. While the application of this theory to understand human behaviour has taken time (and engendered a great deal of controversy), enough progress has now been made to outline the story in full, and to fill in several of the details. It is just this task that legendary biologist E.O. Wilson takes up in his new book `The Social Conquest of Earth'.

For Wilson, understanding humanity must begin with an understanding of how we came to be the ultrasocial species that we are. Drawing upon evidence from other eusocial species (such as bees, wasps, termites and ants--the latter of which Wilson has spent much of his career studying), as well as numerous sciences focused in on humanity and its past, Wilson recreates this story. According to the author, the story reaches its first major turning point when our ancestors began establishing home-bases at which they raised their young, and near which they foraged and scavenged for food. This development itself was largely a result of a genetic modification that led our ancestors to rely more and more on meat in their diet (and was greatly spurred on by, if not entirely dependent upon, the ability to control fire, which fire was used to establish more lasting campsites).

Once human beings had established nests, environmental pressures began selecting for traits that increasingly drew group members into cooperative relationships with one another (which cooperation was beneficial in such enterprises as hunting expeditions). This added cooperation not only contributed to the extent to which these early humans could reap resources from the environment, but also helped them in competition with other groups--especially in warfare. The benefits of cooperation and cohesion in allowing groups to out-compete other groups eventually allowed group-level selection to add a layer of tribalist sentiment to the members of our species (which tribalist sentiment draws from us a deep attachment to our in-groups, and a corresponding mistrust and contempt for members of out-groups). This tribalist sentiment eventually set the stage for the development of the first religions. The cooperative and tribalist sentiments that evolved during this time ultimately explains why our psyches are torn between selflessness and selfishness, virtue and vice. (On the topic of group-level selection, it turns out that this theory has been out of favour in the scientific community for over 40 years, and a big part of Wilson's purpose here is to resurrect the theory, and reestablish its credibility.)

Backing up in our story just a bit, for our in-group cooperation to occur, added mental equipment was needed (and evolved) that allowed humans to understand each others' intentions and work together to achieve goals. This added mental ability drew upon earlier increases in brain capacity that our ancestors had used first for life in the trees, and later for life on the ground, to fashion rudimentary tools. Eventually, the added mental capacity evolved into the ability to understand abstraction, and to use arbitrary symbols for communication, thus leading to the evolution of language.

Once the capacity for abstraction and language were established, the capacity for culture exploded and our ancestors were set on the fast track that led to our current way of life. Specifically, the onset of language led to the development of religion, art and music, and all of the other trappings of culture that we know and enjoy today. Wilson takes us through each of them one by one, and the process of gene-culture co-evolution that acted upon them, in order to help us understand how this process unfolded. Later, the explosion of culture led to technology that eventually gave rise to agriculture, and then to the rise of chiefdoms, and finally states and the first true civilizations.

Wilson's work is well geared to a general audience and he very rarely goes outside of what might reasonably be expected from such an audience. On the rare occasions when he does, he is sure to follow this up with a simplified summary of his line of thought. Also, Wilson occasionally strays outside of his story to moralize and (at the end) prognosticate on the future, and at times these efforts seem awkward and out of place. Again, though, these forays are few and far between, and many will no doubt enjoy them. A full summary of the book is available here:  An Executive Summary of Edward O. Wilson's 'The Social Conquest of Earth'
244 Personen fanden diese Informationen hilfreich
 Melden
santiago rubio de casas
5,0 von 5 Sternen excelente exposición del estado de la cuestión en ética evolutiva
Rezension aus Spanien vom 7. Mai 2013
Verifizierter Kauf
excelente exposición del estado de la cuestión en ética evolutiva, por el padre de la sociobiología que ha superado sus tesis, algo simplistas, iniciales
Melden