The State of Nature by Gregg Mitman

The State of Nature by Gregg Mitman

Although science may claim to be "objective," scientists cannot avoid the influence of their own values on their research. In The State of Nature, Gregg Mitman examines the relationship between issues in early twentieth-century American society and the sciences of evolution and ecology to reveal how explicit social and political concerns influenced the scientific agenda of biologists at the University of Chicago and throughout the United States during the first half of this century. Reacting against the view of nature "red in tooth and claw," ecologists and behavioral biologists such as Warder Clyde Allee, Alfred Emerson, and their colleagues developed research programs they hoped would validate and promote an image of human society as essentially cooperative rather than competitive. Mitman argues that Allee's religious training and pacifist convictions shaped his pioneering studies of animal communities in a way that could be generalized to denounce the view that war is in our genes.

Mitman, Gregg: - Gregg Mitman is the Vilas Research and William Coleman Professor of History of Science, Medical History, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape Our Lives and Landscapes and coeditor of Documenting the World: Film, Photography, and the Scientific Record, the latter also published by the University of Chicago Press.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780226532363
ISBN 10	0226532364
Title	The State of Nature
Author	Gregg Mitman
Series	Science And Its Conceptual Foundations Series
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	The University of Chicago Press
Year published	1992-10-01
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.