Dear all, A kind reminder that Heidi Colleran (Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse) will be speaking today at 2pm in Seminar Room 1 and tomorrow at 2pm in the Board Room, Department of History and Philosophy of Science.
All welcome! Sam > Subject: Upcoming talks on 3 and 4 May: Heidi Colleran on 'Reproductive > decision-making' and 'Natural fertility' > > Dear all, > > You are warmly invited to two special seminars put on by the Nature and > Culture group. Heidi Colleran (Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse) will > be speaking at 2pm on Tuesday 3rd May in Seminar Room 1, and 2pm on Wednesday > 4th May in the Board Room, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, > Free School Lane. > > > 2pm Tuesday 3rd May > Decisions, decisions: models of reproductive decision-making in evolutionary > anthropology > > Evolution relies on reproduction. And yet, as I’ll argue in this talk, > evolutionary anthropology doesn’t have a comprehensive theory of reproductive > decision-making. Such a theory should be general enough to explain how > reproduction ‘functions’ in both high and low fertility contexts, and > specific enough to delineate causal hypotheses that can deal with changing > reproductive patterns. Evolutionary anthropology has been successful in > accounting for aspects of reproductive decision-making in small-scale and > so-called ‘natural fertility’ contexts, but it is struggling to make sense of > the demographic transition to low fertility that characterizes most of the > contemporary world. Reconciling alternative modeling approaches, in > particular, bringing in insights from cultural evolution theory, may help in > developing an overarching framework. But different subfields tend to consider > their own view the more general one so there has been little integration. > Conceptual overlaps make competing alternative hypotheses difficult to > delineate, and there are many empirical and interpretive issues to be > grappled with in the process. Using demographic transitions to low fertility > as a focal point, I will highlight some of these problems, and try to sketch > a way forward. > > > 2pm Wednesday 4th May > Contraceptive use and the meaning of ‘natural fertility’ > > The idea of ‘natural fertility’ permeates evolutionary anthropology and > demography. In this talk I’ll provide an overview and a critique of this > approach to human reproduction, from an anthropological and evolutionary > perspective. I’ll argue that, quite apart from the ethical issues of > consigning some populations to be ‘natural’ and others ‘modern’, natural > fertility creates unnecessary theoretical and conceptual problems for > evolutionary researchers. Focusing on contraceptive behavior cross-culturally > and in my own work in rural Poland, I will argue that if we take a > behavior-based rather than a method-based approach to contraceptive use, > there can be no such thing as natural fertility. > > > http://www.humannature.hps.cam.ac.uk// > <http://www.humannature.hps.cam.ac.uk//> _____________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CamPhilEvents mailing list, or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents List archive: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive Please note that CamPhilEvents doesn't accept email attachments. See the list information page for further details and suggested alternatives.
