15 July 2019 - Submission deadline for individual contributions

In recent decades, the Darwinian theory of evolution has penetrated the core disciplines of social, cultural and historical sciences. Evolutionary scientists formulate theories that not only claim to explain the forms of human coexistence, for example within families, but also include social, cultural and historical developments in their explanatory claims. This expansion has not always been warmly welcomed, particularly in German-speaking countries. For some time now, however, there has been an increasing willingness within many parts of the social and cultural sciences to engage constructively with evolutionary biological explanations of human behaviour. However, programmatic contributions dominate. Empirical studies that examine the interplay of social, cultural and biological mechanisms in a very concrete and small-scale manner, and theoretical studies that work on an equally small-scale integration of social science and evolutionary biology theories, are still rare. We would therefore like to use the 2019 conference of the MVE List to strengthen interdisciplinary cooperation between the aforementioned sciences in German-speaking countries.

We therefore particularly invite the following types of submissions: (1) empirical contributions that examine the relationship between biological and cultural or social mechanisms; (2) theoretical contributions that endeavour to integrate social science and evolutionary biology research literatures; (3) sociology of science papers that focus empirically or theoretically on the tension between evolutionary biology and the social sciences. We focus on the following topics, among others, although we also consider submissions that cannot be directly assigned to one of these focal points.

• The connection between proximate social and biological behavioural correlates
  (e.g. in the context of sociogenomics, neurosociology or behavioural endocrinology)
• Evolutionary mechanisms and processes outside of biological evolution
  (e.g. evolution of social and cultural systems, memetics)
• Shared methods (esp. evolutionary game theory)
• Theoretical clarification of the relationship between evolutionary and cultural/social science theories (e.g. in relation to supposed theoretical challenges such as altruism or co-operation)
• Sociological studies of science on actual interdisciplinary co-operation (e.g. citation networks, surveys on barriers to co-operation)

In the selection of contributions, attention will be paid to an interdisciplinary composition of scientists and the conference will offer ample time for discussion. This should make it possible to discuss what the Darwinian evolutionary sciences and the cultural/social sciences can learn from each other in theory and empiricism and what barriers may exist in everyday research work despite all willingness to cooperate. One focus of the discussion will also be to explore when the different approaches are actually incompatible and when they are more likely to be pseudo-conflicts due to misunderstandings and the difficulties of interdisciplinary communication.

Formalities for submission:

Interested researchers are cordially invited to submit an abstract of the planned contribution (with information on the subject, research question, objectives and structure of the contribution) of 300 to 500 words by 15 July 2019 at (see also here) as a Word or PDF file. In addition to a short biography of no more than 10 to 12 lines, the abstract should also include full contact details (name, academic title(s), institutional affiliation, postal address, telephone number and email address). Extended abstracts or entire working papers can also be submitted. A re-registering student should be notified of acceptance or rejection of the proposal by mid-August 2019.