Ancestral hierarchy and conflict

Ancestral Pan, the shared predecessor of humans, bonobos, and chimpanzees, lived in social dominance hierarchies that created conflict through individual and coalitional competition. This ancestor had male and female mediators, but individuals often reconciled independently. An evolutionary trajectory is traced from this ancestor to extant hunter-gatherers, whose coalitional behavior results in suppressed dominance and competition, except in mate competition. A territorial ancestral Pan would not have engaged in intensive warfare if we consider bonobo behavior, but modern human foragers have the potential for full-scale war. Although hunter-gatherers are able to resolve conflicts preemptively, they also use mechanisms, such as truces and peace pacts, to mitigate conflict when the costs become too high. Today, humans retain the genetic underpinnings of both conflict and conflict management; thus, we retain the potential for both war and peace.     

Breeding together: kin selection and mutualism in cooperative vertebrates

In cooperatively breeding vertebrates, nonbreeding helpers raise young produced by dominant breeders. Although the evolution of cooperative breeding has often been attributed primarily to kin selection (whereby individuals gain "indirect" benefits to their fitness by assisting collateral relatives), there is increasing evidence that helpers can be unrelated to the young they are raising. Recent studies also suggest that the indirect benefits of cooperative behavior may often have been overestimated while the direct benefits of helping to the helper's own fitness have probably been underestimated. It now seems likely that the evolutionary mechanisms maintaining cooperative breeding are diverse and that, in some species, the direct benefits of helping may be sufficient to maintain cooperative societies. The benefits of cooperation in vertebrate societies may consequently show parallels with those in human societies, where cooperation between unrelated individuals is frequent and social institutions are often maintained by generalized reciprocity.     

人的本质新论

人的本质,通常认为,就其现实性上,是一切社会关系的总和。笔者认为：从现实社会关系的总和去把握人的本质,只是把握人的本质的途径和方法,而不是人的本质本身。通过揭示并论证人是思维与存在的矛盾存在,实践是人的存在方式,从而论证了人的本质是在实践中展开着的思维与存在的矛盾存在,并初步揭示了“人的本质新论”的哲学功能。     

人的现代化与人的情感需要——转型期两性情感现状的理性思考

主体性是现代人的本质特征。人走向现代化的过程是卞体性逐渐宏扬的过程。个人情感需求体现人的主体性。正确看待我国现代化过程中的情感危机现象，肯定转型期人的多种情感需求的合理性，但必须通过道德理性提升人的需要层次，使人的主体性的情感需要与社会道德之问保持合理张力，让人性在社会有序运转条件下得以一定程度的“释放”。这样，才能真正实现人的现代化和社会的现代化。     

The social sense: susceptibility to others' beliefs in human infants and adults

Human social interactions crucially depend on the ability to represent other agents' beliefs even when these contradict our own beliefs, leading to the potentially complex problem of simultaneously holding two conflicting representations in mind. Here, we show that adults and 7-month-olds automatically encode others' beliefs, and that, surprisingly, others' beliefs have similar effects as the participants' own beliefs. In a visual object detection task, participants' beliefs and the beliefs of an agent (whose beliefs were irrelevant to performing the task) both modulated adults' reaction times and infants' looking times. Moreover, the agent's beliefs influenced participants' behavior even after the agent had left the scene, suggesting that participants computed the agent's beliefs online and sustained them, possibly for future predictions about the agent's behavior. Hence, the mere presence of an agent automatically triggers powerful processes of belief computation that may be part of a "social sense" crucial to human societies.     

Pre-Columbian urbanism, anthropogenic landscapes, and the future of the Amazon

The archaeology of pre-Columbian polities in the Amazon River basin forces a reconsideration of early urbanism and long-term change in tropical forest landscapes. We describe settlement and land-use patterns of complex societies on the eve of European contact (after 1492) in the Upper Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon. These societies were organized in articulated clusters, representing small independent polities, within a regional peer polity. These patterns constitute a "galactic" form of prehistoric urbanism, sharing features with small-scale urban polities in other areas. Understanding long-term change in coupled human-environment systems relating to these societies has implications for conservation and sustainable development, notably to control ecological degradation and maintain regional biodiversity.     

The competitive advantage of sanctioning institutions

Understanding the fundamental patterns and determinants of human cooperation and the maintenance of social order in human societies is a challenge across disciplines. The existing empirical evidence for the higher levels of cooperation when altruistic punishment is present versus when it is absent systematically ignores the institutional competition inherent in human societies. Whether punishment would be deliberately adopted and would similarly enhance cooperation when directly competing with nonpunishment institutions is highly controversial in light of recent findings on the detrimental effects of punishment. We show experimentally that a sanctioning institution is the undisputed winner in a competition with a sanction-free institution. Despite initial aversion, the entire population migrates successively to the sanctioning institution and strongly cooperates, whereas the sanction-free society becomes fully depopulated. The findings demonstrate the competitive advantage of sanctioning institutions and exemplify the emergence and manifestation of social order driven by institutional selection.     

儒学伦理传统与中国文化软实力建设

从"天人合一"的和谐观,"格致诚正"、"修齐治平"的道德实践和道德修养,"仁者以天地万物为一体"的道德境界,"为天地立心,为生民立命,为往圣继绝学,为万世开太平"的道德使命四个方面简单阐述了儒学伦理传统的核心价值,并认为儒学伦理传统是中国文化软实力建设的重要源泉和根基。惟其如此,我们才可能建构对内足以形成一种凝聚力,对外足以形成一种吸引力,具有国际影响力的文化软实力。     

Primates--a natural heritage of conflict resolution

The traditional notion of aggression as an antisocial instinct is being replaced by a framework that considers it a tool of competition and negotiation. When survival depends on mutual assistance, the expression of aggression is constrained by the need to maintain beneficial relationships. Moreover, evolution has produced ways of countering its disruptive consequences. For example, chimpanzees kiss and embrace after fights, and other nonhuman primates engage in similar "reconciliations." Theoretical developments in this field carry implications for human aggression research. From families to high schools, aggressive conflict is subject to the same constraints known of cooperative animal societies. It is only when social relationships are valued that one can expect the full complement of natural checks and balances.     

Soils, agriculture, and society in precontact Hawai'i

Before European contact, Hawai'i supported large human populations in complex societies that were based on multiple pathways of intensive agriculture. We show that soils within a long-abandoned 60-square-kilometer dryland agricultural complex are substantially richer in bases and phosphorus than are those just outside it, and that this enrichment predated the establishment of intensive agriculture. Climate and soil fertility combined to constrain large dryland agricultural systems and the societies they supported to well-defined portions of just the younger islands within the Hawaiian archipelago; societies on the older islands were based on irrigated wetland agriculture. Similar processes may have influenced the dynamics of agricultural intensification across the tropics.     

Formal and informal relations to rice seed systems in Kerala,India: agrobiodiversity as a gendered social-ecological artifact

Agrobiodiversity is an evident outcome of a long-lasting human–nature relationship, as the continuous use, conservation and management of crops has resulted in biological as well as cultural diversity of seeds and breeds. This paper aims to understand the interlocking of formal and informal seed supply routes by considering the dynamic flow of seeds within networks across the intersections of gender, ethnicity and age in South India as social categories structuring human–nature relations. This changing relationship under formal and informal institutional settings has consequences on performance for men and women in rice seed systems. Undertaking an empirical analysis of the organization of seed management and exchange, we seek to shed light on the gendered organization of agrobiodiversity as a social network. The study builds on Net-Map interviews conducted in 2012, embedded in the larger BioDIVA project in the district of Wayanad in Kerala, India. Based on network analysis, the interactive method employed has enabled identification of important actors in the seed system and the characteristics of their relationships. We look into the gendered structure of information exchange regarding seed varieties and actual seed transactions, while also examining clusters of actors collaborating regarding seed supply. Finally, we identify the institutional gap concerning seed sources left by formal and informal institutions, like the availability of varieties. We show how informal and formal seed systems coexist and overlap due to actors moving between systems and argue that the degree and areas of overlap are shaped by gendered human–nature relations.     

The ecological basis of the indigenous Nahua agriculture in the sixteenth century

The study of agriculture in ancient societies is of vital importance for the understanding of their ecological basis. This article discusses data gathered from Alonso de Molina's dictionary, published in Mexico City in 1571. Molina's information on soil, rain, plants, technology, and human labor applied to agricultural activities gives a picture of the complexity of the several native agricultural systems practiced at that time. Since the Sixteenth Century, native agriculture was impacted by the introduction of new plants, animals, agricultural equipment, and techniques from the Old World. A combination of the two agricultural models conform a new Mexican model of agriculture along the Colonial times. The knowledge of Sixteenth Century agricultural systems is fundamental for the understanding of the history and the conformation of contemporary agro-ecosystems. Recent studies on ecology and social anthropology agree on the necessity to take into account historical data for the discussion of ecological sustainability.     

自然保护区生态旅游开发模式研究

生态旅游是自然保护区保护性开发的重要途径。通过分析自然保护区生态旅游开发的必要性,借鉴国内外对保护区生态旅游开发的成功经验,提出了＂保护、开发、管理＂三位一体的自然保护区生态旅游开发新模式（简称NRPTEM）,该模式包括保护、开发、管理三大系统和生物多样性保护、地质遗迹保护、人文生态保护、环境检测、科学规划、产品开发、市场开拓、设施建设、能力建设、社区共管、环境教育、管理创新12项工程,以及人为因素这项重要结构要素。阐明了在自然保护区生态旅游开发这个复杂而庞大的系统过程中,保护、开发与管理三大系统及其内在的12项重要结构要素之间的关系,以及人为因素在三大系统中的主导作用。     

Computer networks as social networks

Computer networks are inherently social networks, linking people, organizations, and knowledge. They are social institutions that should not be studied in isolation but as integrated into everyday lives. The proliferation of computer networks has facilitated a deemphasis on group solidarities at work and in the community and afforded a turn to networked societies that are loosely bounded and sparsely knit. The Internet increases people's social capital, increasing contact with friends and relatives who live nearby and far away. New tools must be developed to help people navigate and find knowledge in complex, fragmented, networked societies.     

Phenotypic basis of reproductive success in a social insect: genetic and social determinants

Social insects live in societies that include both reproductive and nonreproductive adults. Understanding the factors that determine which individuals become successful reproductives is necessary to explain the evolution of these societies. The phenotypic effects of the gene Pgm-3 (or a closely linked gene) that may cause workers of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta to selectively execute all queens of a specific genotype were investigated. These effects, which involve differences in queen reproductive development, are expressed only in colonies exhibiting a particular type of social organization (multiple-queen colonies), and it is only in such colonies that selective execution on the basis of genotype occurs. This is an unusual example of genotype-environment interaction in gene expression in which the environmental component is the social environment. The queens executed are, surprisingly, those with the greatest reproductive development. Thus, there is a counterintuitive relation between the potential and realized reproductive success of queens in multiple-queen societies of this ant.     

Stakeholder interactions in Castile-La Mancha,Spain’s cereal-sheep system

Large tracts of European rural land, mostly in the less favored areas (LFA), are devoted to low-inputs and large scale grazing systems (LSGS) with potential environmental and social functions. Although these LSGS may provide harbor for a good part of European nature values, their continuity is facing contrasting threats of intensification and abandonment. These areas, however, may be characterized by particular grazing structures and social dynamics of change that should be unveiled prior to attempts to devise rural development strategies or to adapt policy frameworks in general. To wit, stakeholder interactions and legal and institutional processes are described and analyzed for the cereal-sheep system of Castile-La Mancha (CLM) in the central Iberian plain. Farmers and pastoralists still share the use of the land, but their roles and interests have changed over time, and particularly in the last 50 years. Arable farming, mainly cereal cropping, has followed an intensification path, partially tempered by the environmental constraints of the Castilian plain. Extensive pastoralism is still a secondary option of land use; in the main, sheep farmers depend on, and look to, the management practices of arable farmers. A mixed cereal and sheep operation may deliver environmental and economic benefits, but successful implementation of this strategy is only possible when the system serves the needs of both types of stakeholders. Paradoxically, the main drivers of change in the countryside overall are arrayed against this sensible and traditional agricultural system. We argue that the recent legal and institutional frameworks do not favor social cohesion and that policy-support schemes of the European Union (EU) have been, and continue to be, devised without taking into account the particular structures and social dynamic of the farming system.

论生产、资源和环境中的信息问题

把信息定义为负熵是合理的,并且对研究社会有重要作用。生产过程是一个信息投入和局部积累过程,把生产过程中的信息形成与能流物质流分开,就可以进一步看清生产要素的作用和它们之间的关系。资源是社会的负熵之源,资源的品位与其信息量有关;资源枯竭之说是不能证实的,信息理论提供了解决资源问题的思路。环境质量的降低,环境熵的增大,是人类生产——消费活动和社会发展的必然结果,但是只要有一定的信息投入,就可以维持一个适于人类生存的环境。     

气象信息网络安全风险评估

中国古代哲学家们在社会分工影响人性这一问题上做出了广泛的讨论,他们肯定从事读书、农耕劳动等职业有利于保持人们的善良本性,而当官、做工匠、从商则给人性带来负面的影响。同时他们还看到社会分工对人性影响的相对性,自然环境、经济环境、政治环境以及人性的可塑性和个人修养也是影响人性的重要因素。     

Promoting the Middle East peace process by changing beliefs about group malleability

Four studies showed that beliefs about whether groups have a malleable versus fixed nature affected intergroup attitudes and willingness to compromise for peace. Using a nationwide sample (N = 500) of Israeli Jews, the first study showed that a belief that groups were malleable predicted positive attitudes toward Palestinians, which in turn predicted willingness to compromise. In the remaining three studies, experimentally inducing malleable versus fixed beliefs about groups among Israeli Jews (N = 76), Palestinian citizens of Israel (N = 59), and Palestinians in the West Bank (N = 53)--without mentioning the adversary--led to more positive attitudes toward the outgroup and, in turn, increased willingness to compromise for peace.     

How social organization shapes crop diversity: an ecological anthropology approach among Tharaka farmers of Mount Kenya

The conservation of in situ crop diversity is a key issue to ensure food security. Understanding the processes that shape it is crucial for efficiently managing such diversity. In most rural societies, crop diversity patterns are affected by farmers’ practices of seed exchange, transmission, and selection, but the role of social organization in shaping those practices has been overlooked. This study proposes an ecological anthropology approach to investigate the relation between crop diversity patterns and the social organization of Tharaka farmers in Kenya. The Tharaka are organized in neighborhood-groups, clans, and age-sets. We quantified the influence of these three major social institutions on crop diversity patterns, for both crop species and sorghum landraces. General linear models were used to test the relations between crop species richness and each social factor, while the crop species and sorghum landraces compositions of cropping systems were compared separately through a between-class correspondence analysis. Crop species and sorghum landraces are not randomly distributed among farms, and neighborhood-groups constitute a significant factor organizing crop diversity at both specific and infraspecific levels. Adjacent neighborhood-groups present significantly different crop richness and composition. The results for species were consistent with those obtained for sorghum landraces, confirming that crop diversity was socially structured. The influence of social organization on seed networks and selection processes is discussed.