Overview

Susan Oyama and her colleagues in the field of developmental systems theory have rejected the determinism inherent in the nature/nurture debate, arguing that behaviour cannot be reduced to distinct biological or environmental causes. In this volume, Oyama elaborates on her work on developmental systems by spelling out that work's implications for the fields of evolutionary theory, developmental and social psychology, feminism, and epistemology. Her approach seeks to alter profoundly our understanding of the biological processes of development and evolution and the interrelationships between them. While acknowledging that, in an uncertain world, it is easy to ""blame it on the genes"", Oyama claims that the renewed trend toward genetic determinism colours the way we think about everything from human evolution to sexual orientation and personal responsibility. She presents instead a view that focuses on how a wide variety of developmental factors interact in the multileveled developmental systems that give rise to organisms. Shifting attention away from genes and the environment as causes for behaviour, she shows the benefits that come from thinking about life processes in terms of developmental systems that produce, sustain and change living beings over both developmental and evolutionary time.

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9780822324720

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Reviews

"""Oyama writes elegantly and from a deep intellectual base. This alternative view to the dominant genetic determinism will be of interest to all who seek a more complex view of human nature. It is an excellent book, beautifully composed.""--Katherine Nelson, City University of New York ""[Oyama's] subtle and sometimes abstruse study of recent concepts in biology and social science ... aims to displace models of selfish genes with models of competing and interacting processes ... she wants to think--and to get us to think--about how culture, environment, and genetic programming are constantly ""talking to"" one another, and how it's their interaction that creates us. It's a worthy goal, and one her book should advance.""--Publishers Weekly, April 24, 2000 ""To think of nature and nurture as two distinct categories is not only wrong, Susan Oyama convincingly argues, but doing so hobbles our attempts to understand the nature of development and evolution at every level. Hers is a voice that needs to be heard.""--Evelyn Fox Keller, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ""Susan Oyama's Ontogeny of Information provided a navigational chart for researchers seeking to avoid the shoals of the nature-nurture dichotomy. Here, in Evolution's Eye, she good-humouredly unmasks the rhetorical stratagems of reflexive genecentrism, while continuing to strengthen the case for the integrative, multifocal, approach of developmental systems theory.""--Helen E. Longino, University of Minnesota"

""Oyama writes elegantly and from a deep intellectual base. This alternative view to the dominant genetic determinism will be of interest to all who seek a more complex view of human nature. It is an excellent book, beautifully composed.""--Katherine Nelson, City University of New York ""[Oyama's] subtle and sometimes abstruse study of recent concepts in biology and social science ... aims to displace models of selfish genes with models of competing and interacting processes ... she wants to think--and to get us to think--about how culture, environment, and genetic programming are constantly ""talking to"" one another, and how it's their interaction that creates us. It's a worthy goal, and one her book should advance.""--Publishers Weekly, April 24, 2000 ""To think of nature and nurture as two distinct categories is not only wrong, Susan Oyama convincingly argues, but doing so hobbles our attempts to understand the nature of development and evolution at every level. Hers is a voice that needs to be heard.""--Evelyn Fox Keller, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ""Susan Oyama's Ontogeny of Information provided a navigational chart for researchers seeking to avoid the shoals of the nature-nurture dichotomy. Here, in Evolution's Eye, she good-humouredly unmasks the rhetorical stratagems of reflexive genecentrism, while continuing to strengthen the case for the integrative, multifocal, approach of developmental systems theory.""--Helen E. Longino, University of Minnesota

Oyama writes elegantly and from a deep intellectual base. This alternative view to the dominant genetic determinism will be of interest to all who seek a more complex view of human nature. It is an excellent book, beautifully composed. --Katherine Nelson, City University of New York [Oyama's] subtle and sometimes abstruse study of recent concepts in biology and social science ... aims to displace models of selfish genes with models of competing and interacting processes ... she wants to think--and to get us to think--about how culture, environment, and genetic programming are constantly talking to one another, and how it's their interaction that creates us. It's a worthy goal, and one her book should advance. --Publishers Weekly, April 24, 2000 To think of nature and nurture as two distinct categories is not only wrong, Susan Oyama convincingly argues, but doing so hobbles our attempts to understand the nature of development and evolution at every level. Hers is a voice that needs to be heard. --Evelyn Fox Keller, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Susan Oyama's Ontogeny of Information provided a navigational chart for researchers seeking to avoid the shoals of the nature-nurture dichotomy. Here, in Evolution's Eye, she good-humouredly unmasks the rhetorical stratagems of reflexive genecentrism, while continuing to strengthen the case for the integrative, multifocal, approach of developmental systems theory. --Helen E. Longino, University of Minnesota

Author Information

Susan Oyama is Professor of Psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York. Her book The Ontogeny of Information is also published by Duke University Press.

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