FronesisEurozine2011-04-13Human natureScientifically speaking it has become increasingly difficult to cling to an idea of the biological as the somehow given domain, and the social as the domain of change when it comes to descriptions of human nature. Almost as an analogy it has during the same time become increasingly difficult to separate between what was formerly dealt with in the separate spheres of science and policy making. Climate change can be seen as the prime example, where the collective wellbeing of the human species has become inseparable from the planet's condition as a whole. The re-actualized question of the potential dangers of nuclear energy could be seen as another example.What consequences do these dissolved boundaries have for left wing intellectuals, who (especially if also labelled feminists) often have discarded biological explanations of human culture as (ill) disguised conservatism? To what extent can those of us who are interested in human sociality, human culture and politics then today find interesting perspectives in evolutionary biology, neuroscience and so forth? How can we describe the interplay between the social and the biological, and can they ever be separated?In issue 35 of Fronesis we present a number of texts representative of both the development and changes in different strands of research based on the evolutionary paradigm and the international political discourse on the relationship between humans and nature.The economist Herbert Gintis and the biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling are researchers who from their individual perspectives emphasize the close bonds between the biological and the social/cultural dimensions, on the basis of concepts of "gene-culture co-evolution" in the first case and "developmental systems theory" in the latter. The philosopher of science David J. Buller offers a critical review of some of the assumptions in the field term evolutionary biology -- a field he nevertheless thinks also has an interesting potential.From their respective standpoints in historical research, sociology, psychology and evolutionary biology, David A Stack, Johan Örestig, Jonas Olofsson and Erik Svensson discuss the changing relationship between the Left and different theories on human nature.The philosopher Richard Rorty focuses on the general problems of confusing the good scientific description with the productive political vision. Sverker Sörlin, professor in environmental history, stresses how crucial different understandings of the relationship between culture and nature have been for political thinking of the last centuries, and how they are reactivated and renegotiated in the contemporary political landscape. This is exemplified by Donna Haraway, discussing our relationship to what she calls our "companion species", and Michel Serres points to the need for a political and legal status of non-human actors in a future political landscape.