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Der lange Weg zu einer evolutionär informierten Sozialgeschichte und das Paradigma der Adaptation

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Evolutionäre Sozialwissenschaften

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Zusammenfassung

Ausgehend vom Paradigma der Adaptation als eine der treibenden Kräfte evolutionär erklärbarer Veränderung zeichnet dieser Beitrag, vor dem Hintergrund der unterschiedlichen Bemühungen um eine Erklärung menschlichen Verhaltens mit Hilfe von empirischen Daten aus historischen Zeiträumen, die methodischen Entwicklungen der letzten Jahrzehnte nach und versucht damit zu einem besseren Verständnis der Möglichkeiten für eine evolutionär informierte Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte im Spannungsfeld des doppelten Erbes von natürlicher und kultureller Anpassung beizutragen. Ausgangspunkt ist das Konzept der Adaptation in der synthetischen Evolutionstheorie und die dem sog. Neo-Darwinismus zugehörige Darwinian History, die sich Ende der 1970er-Jahre in den USA entwickelte. Anschließend werden, am Beispiel der Kontroverse um die historische Entwicklung der menschlichen Paarungssysteme, die Diskussion mit einem Schwerpunkt auf das adaptionistische Paradigma sowie dessen Kritik aufgerollt und die unterschiedlichen Erklärungsansätze miteinander verglichen. Obwohl weiterhin große Vorbehalte in den Sozial- und Geschichtswissenschaften gegenüber ultimaten Erklärungen auf Grundlage der Darwinschen Evolutionstheorie bestehen, haben sich in den letzten 20 Jahren neue interdisziplinäre Brücken durch Ansätze wie Deep History und Evolutionary History aus den Geschichtswissenschaften und die Genetic History aus der Evolutionären Anthropologie etabliert.

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  1. Niedersächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Göttingen, Deutschland

    Jörg Wettlaufer

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  1. Universität Graz, Graz, Österreich

    Manfred Hammerl

  2. Institut für Psychologie, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Deutschland

    Sascha Schwarz

  3. Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Deutschland

    Kai P. Willführ

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Wettlaufer, J. (2024). Der lange Weg zu einer evolutionär informierten Sozialgeschichte und das Paradigma der Adaptation. In: Hammerl, M., Schwarz, S., Willführ, K.P. (eds) Evolutionäre Sozialwissenschaften. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-43624-7_13

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