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Originally Posted by willravel
The term was replaced with more apt or specific terminology with better definitions long ago. I've never heard "human nature" used by anyone but laymen in discussions of anthropology, psychology, or biology.
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I work in an academic setting. I would never accept "human nature" as an explanation for anything, nor would anyone that I work with. I don't use the term in the sense of "Oh well, it's human nature..." I'm not particularly attached to the term itself, more the idea that we have innate (evolved) psychological mechanisms sensitive to particular types of environmental input that interact with that information in the environment, producing behavior (output).
That said, I would never accept "socialization" or the like as an explanation for anything either. I read tabula rasa type explanations of human psychology on the board occasionally. "People learn it from their parents" or "the media teaches people" or "society tells people" or "it's origin is political" are all as equally imprecise as "human nature" and equally useless.
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When I made this an exercise of finding real world solutions, I believe I made outdated, vague philosophical terminology somewhat unwanted. Imagine there was a thread about ending the genocide in Darfur. Would you think it normal to say, "It's just human nature. You can't stop it."?
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I think that an understanding of the functional biological underpinnings of human psychology (certainly more than "It's just human nature") is useful in understanding any social problem. I think that theories of adaptive function (like evolutionary theory) have heuristic value. They have the potential to guide us to solutions to social problems like war.
Roachboy, I am familiar with dynamical systems theory, though perhaps not as familiar as you might be. I honestly don't have the energy to debate whether adaptationist perspectives (my perspective) or dynamical systems perspectives better account for human psychology (or whether there is an appropriate integration). It would require a lot of reading and re-reading on my part. Right now, if it's not going to result in a publication or at least an animated discussion over a few beers, I'm not interested.
That said, my primary point, the reason that I wasted all of this thread space, was that you can't just dismiss adaptationist (how I use "human nature") perspectives without consideration.