IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/ijn_00000484.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evolution and Devolution of Knowledge: A Tale of Two Biologies

Author

Listed:
  • Scott Atran

    (IJN - Institut Jean-Nicod - DEC - Département d'Etudes Cognitives - ENS Paris - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CdF (institution) - Collège de France - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Département de Philosophie - ENS Paris - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres)

  • Douglas Medin
  • Norbert Ross

Abstract

Anthropological inquiry suggests that all societies classify animals and plants in similar ways. Paradoxically, in the same cultures that have seen large advances in biological science, citizenry's practical knowledge of nature has dramatically diminished. Here we describe historical, cross-cultural and developmental research on how people ordinarily conceptualize organic nature (folkbiology), concentrating on cognitive consequences associated with knowledge devolution. We show that results on psychological studies of categorization and reasoning from "standard populations" fail to generalize to humanity at large. Usual populations (Euro-American college students) have impoverished experience with nature, which yields misleading results about knowledge acquisition and the ontogenetic relationship between folkbiology and folkpsychology. We also show that groups living in the same habitat can manifest strikingly distinct behaviors, cognitions and social relations relative to it. This has novel implications for environmental decision making and management, including commons problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Scott Atran & Douglas Medin & Norbert Ross, 2004. "Evolution and Devolution of Knowledge: A Tale of Two Biologies," Post-Print ijn_00000484, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:ijn_00000484
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9655.2004.00195.x
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/ijn_00000484
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/ijn_00000484/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2004.00195.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baron, Jonathan & Spranca, Mark, 1997. "Protected Values," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 1-16, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Casola, Luca & Kemp, Simon & Mackenzie, Alexander, 2009. "Consumer decisions in the black market for stolen or counterfeit goods," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 162-171, April.
    2. Huber, Joel & Viscusi, W. Kip & Bell, Jason, 2008. "Reference dependence in iterative choices," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 106(2), pages 143-152, July.
    3. Guido Berens & Cees Riel & Johan Rekom, 2007. "The CSR-Quality Trade-Off: When can Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Ability Compensate Each Other?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 233-252, September.
    4. Sjöberg, Lennart, 2002. "The distortion of beliefs in the face of uncertainty," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Business Administration 2002:9, Stockholm School of Economics.
    5. Koehler, Jonathan J. & Gershoff, Andrew D., 2003. "Betrayal aversion: When agents of protection become agents of harm," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 244-261, March.
    6. Baron, Jonathan & Ritov, Ilana, 2004. "Omission bias, individual differences, and normality," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 74-85, July.
    7. Irwin, Julie R. & Baron, Jonathan, 2001. "Response Mode Effects and Moral Values," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 177-197, March.
    8. White, Leroy & Bourne, Humphrey, 2007. "Voices and values: Linking values with participation in OR/MS in public policy making," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 588-603, October.
    9. Chan, Kai M.A. & Satterfield, Terre & Goldstein, Joshua, 2012. "Rethinking ecosystem services to better address and navigate cultural values," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 8-18.
    10. Ritov, Ilana & Baron, Jonathan, 1999. "Protected Values and Omission Bias," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 79-94, August.
    11. Eline Jongmans & Alain Jolibert & Julie Irwin, 2014. "Toujours plus, toujours mieux ? Effet contre-intuitif de l'évaluation des attributs environnementaux du produit par le consommateur," Post-Print halshs-01185784, HAL.
    12. Pearson, Leonie J. & Kashima, Yoshihisa & Pearson, Craig J., 2012. "Clarifying protected and utilitarian values of critical capital," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 206-210.
    13. Luce, Mary Frances & Payne, John W. & Bettman, James R., 2000. "Coping with Unfavorable Attribute Values in Choice," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 274-299, March.
    14. Gabler, Colin B. & Myles Landers, V. & Reynolds, Kristy E., 2017. "Purchase decision regret: Negative consequences of the Steadily Increasing Discount strategy," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 201-208.
    15. MacDonald, Patricia A. & Murray, Grant & Patterson, Michele, 2015. "Considering social values in the seafood sector using the Q-method," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 68-76.
    16. Carlson, Erik, 2011. "Non-Archimedean extensive measurement with incomparability," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 71-76, July.
    17. Rottenstreich, Yuval & Kivetz, Ran, 2006. "On decision making without likelihood judgment," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 74-88, September.
    18. Siegrist, Michael & Visschers, Vivianne H.M., 2013. "Acceptance of nuclear power: The Fukushima effect," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 112-119.
    19. Kurt Carlson & Chris Janiszewski & Ralph Keeney & David Krantz & Howard Kunreuther & Mary Luce & J. Russo & Stijn Osselaer & Detlof Winterfeldt, 2008. "A theoretical framework for goal-based choice and for prescriptive analysis," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 241-254, December.
    20. Vatn, Arild, 2009. "Cooperative behavior and institutions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 188-196, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:ijn_00000484. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.