Re: Darwin, Human Nature, and a Short Text

"the desert fox" <brandon.hendrickson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Can anyone point me to a short excerpt by Darwin on human nature?

I'm teaching a philosophy class at a high school, and have started a
multi-stage debate over human nature. The class has divided itself
into two groups ("nature" vs. "nurture", of course!), and is aping the
arguments made in historical texts to help advance their own theses.

Today we did John Locke's "blank slate" theory. For our next text,
I'd like to provide them with a biologically- (hopefully
evolutionary-) based text from the 18th to mid 20th century.
(Following that is going to be an "anti-human nature" anthropology
work, followed by Stephen Pinker.)

I was thinking of doing some early eugenicists (of the non-Hitlerian
perspective), but thought that Darwin might be even better. But I
still haven't gotten around to reading "Origin" and "Descent", and so
am not aware where I might find a short (hopefully easy-to-read; Locke
was tough for the kids) excerpt.

Does anyone happen to know of one?

- brandon

Try Chapter V of the Descent. It's online in many places.
--
John S. Wilkins, Philosophy, University of Sydney
scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre

.

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