The State of Nature by Gregg Mitman - 9780226532363

The University of Chicago Press

The State of NatureEcology, Community, and American Social Thought, 1900-1950\nAuthor(s): Gregg Mitman\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: The University of Chicago Press, United States\nImprint: University of Chicago Press\nISBN-13: 9780226532363, 978-0226532363\nSynopsis\nAlthough science may claim to be \""objective,\"" scientists cannot avoid the influence of their own values on their research. In The State of Nature, Gregg Mitman examines the relationship between issues in early twentieth-century American society and the sciences of evolution and ecology to reveal how explicit social and political concerns influenced the scientific agenda of biologists at the University of Chicago and throughout the United States during the first half of this century. Reacting against the view of nature \""red in tooth and claw,\"" ecologists and behavioral biologists such as Warder Clyde Allee, Alfred Emerson, and their colleagues developed research programs they hoped would validate and promote an image.