TY  - GEN
AU  - Dupre, John
TI  - Human nature and the limits of science
SN  - 9780199248063
U1  - 128 
PY  - 2001///
CY  - Oxford
PB  - Oxford University Press
KW  - Human beings - Philosophy
KW  -  Science - Philosophy
KW  -  Genetic psychology
KW  -  Rational choice theory
N1  - Includes bibliographical references (p. [189]-196) and index
N2  - John Dupre warns that our understanding of human nature is being distorted by two faulty and harmful forms of pseudo-scientific thinking. Not just in the academic world but in everyday life, we find one set of experts who seek to explain the ends at which humans aim in terms of evolutionary theory, while the other set uses economic models to give rules of how we act to achieve those ends. Dupre demonstrates that these theorists' explanations do not work and that, if taken seriously, their theories tend to have dangerous social and political consequences. For these reasons, it is important to resist scientism: an exaggerated conception of what science can be expected to do for us. Dupre restores sanity to the study of human nature by pointing the way to a proper understanding of humans in the societies that are our natural and necessary environments
ER  -