Competing Disiplines. How Biological and Social Sciences competed to be the Academic Authority on Human Social Behaviour, ca. 1970-1990

竞争学科。

• 批准号: 316166947
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Kärin Nickelsen
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Historisches Seminar
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2015-12-31 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/316166947?language=en
• 关键词: Competing; Disiplines.; How; Biological; Social

This project explores the emergence of sociobiology and the resulting academic and public debate, which took place in the last thirty years of the 20th century. In doing so, the project aims to contribute to the history of science and, secondarily, to the contemporary history (of the United States). In addition, it seeks to strengthen the Munich site of the research association "Konkurrenzkulturen" (Cultures of Competition). The sociobiology debate is examined as an instructive case study for competition in academic culture. In this debate, different disciplines attempted to position themselves as the academic authority responsible for explaining human social behavior. With the publication of E.O. Wilson's "Sociobiology. A New Synthesis" in 1975, the claim of the traditional social sciences to this particular subject matter was challenged. "Sociobiology" was understood by some to unduly devalue the social sciences and overstate the relevance and scope of evolutionary biology: It asserted that biological causes were the primary causes of human behavior and, therefore, more important than the "social" causes, which sociology, psychology or anthropology investigate. This sparked a fierce debate that transformed into a competition between disciplines for public attention and approval. The objective of the project is to identify which different strategies of academic competitive behavior were employed and to analyze how these strategies changed over time. Dynamics of boundary work will be investigated as well as the complex interactions between science and the public in the late 20th century.

这个项目探讨了社会生物学的出现和由此产生的学术和公众辩论，这发生在20世纪世纪的最后三十年。在这样做的过程中，该项目旨在为科学史做出贡献，其次是为当代历史（美国）做出贡献。此外，它还寻求加强“竞争文化”研究协会在慕尼黑的网站。社会生物学的争论被视为学术文化竞争的一个有指导意义的案例研究。在这场争论中，不同的学科试图将自己定位为负责解释人类社会行为的学术权威。随着E.O.威尔逊的《社会生物学》在1975年的“新综合”中，传统社会科学对这一特定主题的主张受到了挑战。有些人认为“社会生物学”不适当地贬低了社会科学，并夸大了演化生物学的相关性和范围：它断言生物原因是人类行为的主要原因，因此比社会学、心理学或人类学研究的“社会”原因更重要。这引发了一场激烈的辩论，演变成了各学科之间争夺公众关注和认可的竞争。该项目的目的是确定哪些不同的战略，学术竞争行为的采用，并分析这些策略如何随着时间的推移而变化。边界工作的动力学将被调查，以及科学和公众之间的复杂的相互作用在世纪后期。