Xenophobia and other reasons to wonder about the domain specificity of folk-biological classification

Atran adds a synthesis of much of the literature on folk-biological classification to important new experimental data relevant to long-standing inferences about the structure of folk taxonomies. What we know about such systems is somewhat overstated, and key issues remain unresolved, especially conc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Behavioral and brain sciences 1998-08, Vol.21 (4), p.575-576
Main Author: Hays, Terence E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atran: Folk biology
Biology
Classification
Cognition & reasoning
Culture
Evolution
Open Peer Commentary
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Atran adds a synthesis of much of the literature on folk-biological classification to important new experimental data relevant to long-standing inferences about the structure of folk taxonomies. What we know about such systems is somewhat overstated, and key issues remain unresolved, especially concerning the centrality of “generic species,” the primacy of “general purpose” taxonomies, and domain specificity.
ISSN:0140-525X
1469-1825
DOI:10.1017/S0140525X98291278