Efforts have been dedicated to the understanding of social-ecological systems, an important focus in ethnobiological studies. In particular, ethnobiological investigations have found evidence and tested hypotheses over the last 30 years on the interactions between human groups and their environments, generating the need to formulate a theory for such systems. In this article, we propose the social-ecological theory of maximization to explain the construction and functioning of these systems over time, encompassing hypotheses and evidence from previous ethnobiological studies. In proposing (...) the theory, we present definitions and two conceptual models, an environmental maximization model and a redundancy generation model. The first model seeks to address biota selection and its use by human populations. The second emphasizes how the system organizes itself from the elements that were incorporated into it. Furthermore, we provide the theoretical scenario of plant selection and use from an evolutionary perspective, which explicitly integrates the phylogenetic relationships of plants (or other living resources) and human beings. (shrink)

It is widely recognized that the innate versus acquired distinction is a false dichotomy. Yet many scientists continue to describe certain traits as “innate” and take this to imply that those traits are not acquired, or “unlearned.” This article asks what cognitive role, if any, the concept of innateness should play in the psychological and behavioural sciences. I consider three arguments for eliminating innateness from scientific discourse. First, the classification of a trait as innate is thought to discourage empirical research (...) into its developmental origin. Second, this concept lumps together a number of different biological properties that ought to be treated as distinct. Third, innateness is associated with the outmoded folk biological theory of essentialism. In response to these objections, I consider two attempts to revise the concept of innateness which aim to make it more suitable for scientific explanation and research. One proposal is that innateness can be defined in terms of the biological property of environmental canalization. On this view, a trait is innate to the extent that it is developmentally buffered against a range of different environments. Another proposal is that innateness serves as an explanatory primitive for cognitive science. This view holds that there exist a sharp boundary between psychological and biological explanations and that to identify a trait as innate means that it falls into the latter explanatory domain. This essay ends with some questions for future research. (shrink)

Pliny’s Natural History has been traditionally considered as the unoriginal work of an uncritical compiler. This has also been held to be true of the “biological” books, especially when one compares them with the works of Aristotle, one of Pliny’s main authorities in this domain. Aristotle’s achievements would be remarkable, especially in the field of classification, of which the philosopher is traditionally celebrated as the scientific father. However, by carefully reading HN XXXII it is possible to find a certain “taxonomic” (...) awareness—as, for instance, the need for a more accurate nomenclature in order to distinguish some aquatic animals beyond the proliferation of different vernacular terms—which is not to be found in the works of Aristotle. This, in a rather positivist way, may seem to anticipate Renaissance naturalists, but is in fact the consequence of both Pliny’s encyclopedic project and contingent ethnobiological, linguistic and social factors. (shrink)

The idea that some characteristics of an organism are explained by the organism's intrinsic nature, whilst others reflect the influence of the environment is an ancient one. It has even been argued that this distinction is itself part of the evolved psychology of the human species. The distinction played an important role in the history of philosophy as the locus of the dispute between Rationalism and Empiricism discussed in another entry in this encyclopedia. This entry, however, focuses on twentieth-century accounts (...) of the innate/acquired distinction. These accounts have for the most part been inspired by the sciences of mind and behaviour. (shrink)

Efforts have been dedicated to the understanding of social-ecological systems, an important focus in ethnobiological studies. In particular, ethnobiological investigations have found evidence and tested hypotheses over the last 30 years on the interactions between human groups and their environments, generating the need to formulate a theory for such systems. In this article, we propose the social-ecological theory of maximization to explain the construction and functioning of these systems over time, encompassing hypotheses and evidence from previous ethnobiological studies. In proposing (...) the theory, we present definitions and two conceptual models, an environmental maximization model and a redundancy generation model. The first model seeks to address biota selection and its use by human populations. The second emphasizes how the system organizes itself from the elements that were incorporated into it. Furthermore, we provide the theoretical scenario of plant selection and use from an evolutionary perspective, which explicitly integrates the phylogenetic relationships of plants and human beings. (shrink)