Introduction: Bridging the Two Cultures

Abstract

This chapter sets out the basic problematic: can the theory of evolution provide us with a fully scientific theory of human behavior? A subset of this question is whether the fields of the social sciences and the humanities have proven to be failures, and will have to be assimilated into the field of biology or at least be Darwinized, that is, interpreted in terms of evolutionary principles. At the heart of both issues is the question of whether the mechanistic, materialistic model adopted by science is appropriate to understanding human behavior, which unlike particles appears to be rational and goal-directed.