November 11, 2019
In the Fall, 2019 issue of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies Riane Eisler talks with her husband, social psychologist and Darwin scholar David Loye, about his re-examination of Darwin’s theory of evolution and how and why the role of love, moral sensitivity, mutual aid, and other partnership values has been ignored in most evolutionary narratives, whereas selfishness, violence, and other traits key to imposing and maintaining domination systems have been presented as key to human evolution. Loye is the author of Rediscovering Darwin: The Rest of Darwin’s Theory and Why We Need It Today.
In Re-examining Darwin and Human Evolution from a Partnership Perspective: A Conversation with David Loye, PhD., Eisler invites David to talk about his research into Darwin’s work, which reveals some surprising findings that refute an evolutionary narrative based on domination systems. David commented: “in fundamental ways, what Darwin had to say about human evolution is the opposite of what we have been taught—for example, the story that we are driven by “selfish genes.” Throughout The Descent of Man Darwin repeatedly builds the case for what he called mutual aid, community, and community selection. So he prefigured what we today know from neuroscience and you and your co-author Douglas Fry write about in Nurturing Our Humanity: that it is not genes but gene expression that matters, hence the importance of culture. He also prefigured partnership ideas, as he focused not only on culture but on our positive capacities as humans.
The Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies is a peer-reviewed, open-access, electronic journal. IJPS was developed through a partnership between the Center for Partnership Studies, the University of Minnesota Libraries, and the University of Minnesota School of Nursing. The journal is produced by University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing.
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