Folkbiology
Douglas L. Medin and Scott Atran
Jun 1999
ISBN 0262133490
470 pp.
37 illus.
"Folk Biology is an excellent collection of original articles that will be a great aid to scholars and students interested in anthropological and psychological aspects of ethnobiology."
-- Ronald W. Casson, Department of Anthropology, Oberlin College
The term "folkbiology" refers to people's everyday understanding of the biological world--how they perceive, categorize, and reason about living kinds. The study of folkbiology not only sheds light on human nature, it may ultimately help us make the transition to a global economy without irreparably damaging the environment or destroying local cultures.
This book takes an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together the work of researchers in anthropology, cognitive and developmental psychology, biology, and philosophy of science. The issues covered include: Are folk taxonomies a first-order approximation to classical scientific taxonomies, or are they driven more directly by utilitarian concerns? How are these category schemes linked to reasoning about natural kinds? Is there any nontrivial sense in which folk-taxonomic structures are universal? What impact does science have on folk taxonomy? Together, the chapters present the current foundations of folkbiology and indicate new directions in research.
Table of Contents
Contributors
1 Introduction
by Douglas L. Medin and Scott Atran
2 Ethno-ornithology of the Ketengban People, Indonesian New Guinea
by Jared Diamond and K. David Bishop
3 Size as Limiting the Recognition of Biodiversity in Folkbiological Classifications: One of Four Factors Governing the Cultural Recognition of Biological Taxa
by Eugene Hunn
4 How a Folkbotanical System Can Be Both Natural and Comprehensive: One Maya Indian's View of the Plant World
by Brent Berlin
5 Models of Subsistence and Ethnobiological Knowledge: Between Extraction and Cultivation in Southeast Asia
by Roy Ellen
6 Itzaj Maya Folkbiological Taxonomy: Cognitive Universals and Cultural Particulars
by Scott Atran
7 Inductive Reasoning in Folkbiological Thought
by John D. Coley, Douglas L. Medin, Julia Beth Proffitt, Elizabeth Lynch and Scott Atran
8 The Dubbing Ceremony Revisited: Object Naming and Categorization in Infancy and Early Childhood
by Sandra R. Waxman
9 Mechanism and Explanation in the Development of Biological Thought: The Case of Disease
by Frank C. Keil, Daniel T. Levin, Bethany A. Richman and Grant Gutheil
10 A Developmental Perspective on Informal Biology
by Giyoo Hatano and Kayoko Inagaki
11 Mechanical Causality in Children's "Folkbiology"
by Terry Kit-fong Au and Laura F. Romo
12 How Biological Is Essentialism?
by Susan A. Gelman and Lawrence A. Hirschfeld
13 Natural Kinds and Supraorganismal Individuals
by Michael T. Ghiselin
14 Are Whales Fish?
by John Dupré
15 Interdisciplinary Dissonance
by David L. Hull
Index
下载地址：
http://www.ebook3000.com/Douglas-Medin--Scott-Atran---Folkbiology_90165.html
www.psychspace.com心理学空间网
