This volume represents a NEW SCIENCE, an actual integration of the physical (i.e., evolutionary biology) sciences and the social sciences (psychology, sociology, and economics) through mathematical and falsifiable proofs.
The Science of the Self is the type of break through that has been demanded ever since Cosmides, Tooby and Barkow wrote their "step-by-step" guide for "integrating evolutionary biology with psychology, and psychology with cultural phenomena" in 1989 an achievement like science of the Self has been a conceptual possibility but not a probability.
In fact it has taken the authors 15 years and $1.5 million, including 5 prior volumes of documented discovery along the way, to reach the point of declaring an actual science.
The first chapter of the book begins by listing the six elements required for establishment of a science. Each of the following chapters outlines how that requirement has been satisfied, and refers to the detailed material in an Appendix (which is often taken from one of the earlier volumes in the series, Bourdieu's Demon.) This style of organization enables the reader to move quickly through the logical thought process during the first read. The style also enables the authors to share some of their sense of discovery as they move from one level of insight to another, from one type of model to another.
Especially informative is how project is able to move from the strictly sociological x-y plane of the original motives to the x-y-z space of Dr. Stuart Kauffman's N/k evolutionary biology model in which the energy of the motives fuels and informs information-seeking behavior. This Chapter summarizes the prior book The Santa Fe Conjecture and constitutes the heart of how the integration of the science occured. It resulted in the discovery of the M Function, which leads to the discovery of the Self.
Dr. Kauffman is a MacArthur Fellow, a genius, a polymath and a bit of a hero in this whole story. He makes the connection between Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiment's and evolutionary biology by the formula he establishes in the N/k model. It turns out that the 2500 respondents in the sample conform to these guidelines, to differing degrees thus forming three "laminates" or three information cultures based on a combination of (the M Function of) the mean of their Personal Drivers and their Information behaviors and content.
The authors have developed a version of the original Self-survey which enables any reader of this book who visits their website (listed in the book) and pays an administrative fee to obtain a profile of their own personal Self