Showing papers by "University of Los Andes published in 1977"

New Marxist Approaches to the Relative Autonomy of Religion

Abstract: Traditionally, marxist theory has been understood as a reductionism in which religion is conceived as a totally dependent variable, externally and mechanically determined by the economic system of each society. In the past six years, some West European scholars have tried to overcome this reductionism while preserving all of the marxian contributions to the sociology of religions. In this article, there is a summary of ideas developed by three French investigators. For all of these, the main path to overcome reductionism without abandoning the marxian standpoint is through the concept of the relative autonomy of religion: an approach in which religious systems have to be studied in themselves and to be situated within a specific macro-social context in a historical perspective, thus trying to establish the complex mutual influences between social structure and religious systems. In The German Ideology Marx and Engels laid the foundations of a specific sociological paradigm and developed the thesis of the total external determination of religion by the social-economic structure (i.e, religion considered as a totally dependent variable). In a certain sense, this approach gave birth to the sociology of religion as such. At the same time, though, it gave the impulse to an economic reductionism of religion. However, after Marx's death, Engels began to perceive the onesidedness of that approach and tried to surmount it by postulating the relative autonomy of religion (i.e., religion considered as a partially independent sociological variable). Apart from a few exceptions, this view of Engels has been used in the marxist tradition as a helpful, ready-made formal proposition to fill up the unavoidable gaps of research which have arisen because of the bias of economic determinism. In fact, though, classic marxist determinism increasingly proves itself politically and methodologically untenable: while allowing us to discern an important aspect of religion which is not visible from any other standpoint, it prevents us from seeing another equally important aspect of religious phenomena. All this has provoked the need for a more comprehensive standpoint, leading some European scholars to take Engels' later contribution more seriously. They insist on the paramount importance of developing a theory of the relative autonomy of religion, and of doing this in close connection with scientific research and political practice. At the same time, some of these scholars claim explicitly to remain within a marxist approach, insofar as a significant aspect of religious phenomena can only be perceived from that point of view. Incidentally, these recent efforts have enabled marxism to develop toward a valuable confrontation with different ideas from the sociology of religion. Among these contemporary West European essays, I have selected what I consider to be the major attempts to overcome the shortcomings of classical marxist sociology of religion while maintaining its own specific and irreplaceable contributions to the scientific study of religion. This paper is limited, however, to brief, separate accounts of the precise points as developed by each of the three chosen investigators: the anthropologist Maurice Godelier,

Population genetics in the American tropics : XI. Seasonal and temporal variations in relative frequencies of species belonging to the Willistoni group in Colombia.

Abstract: The authors examined seasonal and plant food preferences of members of Drosophila willistoni group in three different ecosystems in Colombia. The results show that there are seasonal preferences as well as food preferences. Furthermore, there exist clear cut temporal (hours of the day) selection which would make possible the sympatric exploitation of equal ecological niches. Comparisons with melanogaster species and with obscura species group are also made.

On the CN (0, 0) spectrum of Comet Mrkos 1957d

Abstract: We have carried out an analysis of the (0, 0) vibrational band of the CN molecule in Comet Mrkos 1957d, including the effect of collisions. We found that the sum of the squares of the residuals can be reduced by a factor of ten, if collisions account for 46±3% of the population of the lower level. A rotational temperature can be assigned to the cometary gas. The best value found was 410±40 K. The best fit for the constantR1 was (1.07±0.10)×10−4. The velocity of the comet was left as a free parameter. We found for it a value of 34.38±0.10 km s−1. This result is in disagreement with the nuclear orbital velocity of 34.74 km s−1. The discrepancy can be explained, if the CN molecules are ejected from the cometary nucleus preferentially in the sunward direction, with a mean velocity that corresponds to the above temperature.

Transport equations for a microbial predator-prey community.

Abstract: A transport equation is used which describes the temporal behavior of interacting populations in changing environments. The formulation takes into account the internal state variables of the individuals. The general theory is applied to the transient analysis of a microbial predator-prey system using an approximate model for the specific cell growth rate and multigroup formulism to approximate the mass distribution within the population. Experimental results in aTetrahymena pyriformis— Aerobacter aerogenes system have been used to evaluate the group parameters and test the validity of the theoretical predictions.