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Education and the New Sciences of Human Nature: How Evolutionary Psychology Can Inform the Education of Young People Charles Smith and Kevin Goff

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Education and the New Sciences of Human Nature: How Evolutionary Psychology Can Inform the Education of Young People Charles Smith and Kevin Goff Journal of Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives in Education Vol. 3, No. 1 (May 2010), 9-18 Education and the New Sciences of Human Nature: How Evolutionary Psychology Can Inform the Education of Young People Charles Smith and Kevin Goff The driving purpose of the entire educational Social Constructionism versus an Integrated enterprise is to cultivate changes in the cognitive Causal Model capacities, conceptual schemata, character, and In a seminal 1992 paper, anthropologist John conduct of young people. Underlying this mission is Tooby and psychologist Leda Cosmides – vanguard a deep optimism that educational environments and proponents of the emerging field of evolutionary experiences can shape and reshape a student’s psychology – heralded the approaching “twilight of developmental trajectory. Of course, every student, learning as a social science explanation”: no matter how young, comes to school already molded in important ways by parents, peers, and Advocates of the Standard Social Science prevailing cultural norms. Thus each student’s Model have believed for nearly a century that developmental trajectory always bears a certain they have a solid explanation for how the social inertia, a socially-conditioned momentum, that world inserts organization into the psychology educators must not only seize upon, but also of the developing individual….Individuals redirect and sometimes even counteract. Just as “learn” their language, they “learn” their engineers develop technologies that both utilize and culture, they “learn” to walk, and so on. All contend with the physical forces of inertia and problems – whether they are long-enduring momentum, so do educational researchers strive to adaptive problems or evolutionarily engineer potent practices that both employ and unprecedented problems – are solved by combat social forces, with the goal of sculpting the “learning”….Of course, as most cognitive thought and behavior of young people. scientists know (and all should), “learning” … is not an explanation for anything, but is rather a Something important is missing from this phenomenon that itself requires model, however. There is another kind of inertia explanation….We expect that the concept of and momentum at work in the thought and behavior learning will eventually disappear as cognitive of students. All people, regardless of cultural psychologists and other researchers make context and social setting, approach the world with progress in determining the actual causal certain cognitive, affective, and behavioral sequences by which the functional business of predispositions that are universal. Many (probably the mind is transacted. (pp. 122-123) most) of these represent extant traces of our biological and psychological evolution as a species. Learning, of course, is a central metaphor in the The study of these universal affinities, or what most field of education, so if its demise is imminent, then of us simply call “human nature,” is the province of educational researchers will want to take heed. the burgeoning field of evolutionary psychology. What Tooby and Cosmides are really challenging, Educational theory that focuses solely on the social however, is not the nature of learning algebra and and cultural momentum born of recent history, such in the classroom, but rather the social while ignoring the more ancient momentum of constructionist dogma that a person’s entire natural history, will be incomplete at best and worldview and behavioral repertoire – one’s misguided at worst. In this paper, through a series concepts, one’s meanings, one’s ways of of practical examples, we argue that evolutionary categorizing and interpreting reality, one’s reactions psychology can constructively inform educational and responses, one’s morals and values, even one’s practice at every level, from the single classroom to emotions, desires, and personality traits – are whole school districts to the enterprise at large. learned from one’s native culture and language (Crotty, 1998). The central tenet of social Page 9 Journal of Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives in Education Vol. 3, No. 1 (May 2010), 9-18 constructionism (or what Tooby and Cosmides call to soft – will reveal that although the relationship the Standard Social Science Model) is that the between “human nature” and “culture” is complex human psyche is exceptionally malleable; the mind indeed, it is emphatically not the case that the latter itself is profoundly molded by whatever symbol precedes the former. system prevails within the local social setting Evolutionary psychology adopts a Darwinian (Crotty, 1998; Pinker 2002). Pinker (2002), an approach to human behavior, cognition, emotion, evolutionary psychologist, likens this model of the and reasoning. According to this model, the mind mind to “silly putty,” pliable into any shape and comprises a suite of adaptations, fashioned by (when pressed against a newspaper) readily natural selection (yet now conditioned by culture), imprinted with language. Culture and language that fostered the survival and reproductive success precede, imprint themselves upon, and indeed of our highly social, foraging hominid ancestors. construct human nature itself. “Culture,” in this These psychological adaptations evolved for paradigm, “is best seen as the source rather than the millions of years before the comparatively recent result of human thought and behavior.…All reality, advent of agriculture, civilization, or anything like as meaningful reality, is socially constructed. There modern culture. Each psychological adaptation is are no exceptions” (Crotty, 1998, p. 54). functionally specialized, context-sensitive, and According to Tooby and Cosmides (1992), this specifically targeted at a particular problem or framework largely gets things backwards and pattern that was recurrent in the environment of our upside-down. Social constructionism, and its evolutionary past, including the social environment concomitant denial of human nature, held sway as (Tooby & Cosmides, 1992). By contrast, social the 20th century’s dominant theoretical framework constructionism holds to a model of the human in the human sciences. It is the foundational brain as a general-purpose learning and reasoning doctrine of anthropology (e.g., Geertz), sociology machine, and it is this that makes the human mind (e.g., Durkheim), social psychology (e.g., Mead), so malleable by culture. Symons (1992), an and critical theory (Marx and all his successors) – evolutionary psychologist, retorts: and by extension, all the educational theories rooted It is no more probable that some sort of general- therein (Crotty 1998; Pinker 2002). One of its purpose brain/mind mechanism could solve all primary effects (and goals) was to wall off the the behavioral problems an organism faces (find social sciences from the natural sciences. food, choose a mate, select a habitat, etc.) than it Over against this trend, Tooby and Cosmides is that some sort of general-purpose organ could (1992) propose to replace the “Standard Social perform all physiological functions (pump Science Model" with an “Integrated Causal Model.” blood, digest food, nourish an embryo, etc.) or The natural sciences are already “vertically that some sort of general-purpose kitchen device integrated”: the principles of chemistry are could perform all food processing tasks (broil, consistent with the laws of physics, the principles of freeze, chop, etc.). There is no such thing as a biology are consistent with those of chemistry, the “general problem solver” because there is no principles of ecology are consistent with those of such thing as a general problem. (p. 142) biology, etc. Likewise, they argue, the social and What we have inherited from our ancient behavioral sciences must be continuous with the ancestors, then, is a toolkit of psychological natural sciences. Anthropology, sociology, and mechanisms, each well engineered for a specific social psychology should be consistent with function, from facial recognition to food selection, cognitive and behavioral psychology, which should from navigating open terrain to negotiating social in turn be consistent with neuroscience and biology. hierarchies, from language acquisition to loving And it is the emerging new metatheory of one’s kin, from making alliances to mistrusting evolutionary psychology, they contend, that will cheats, from wielding tools to wooing mates (Buss, bridge these heretofore segregated disciplines. The 2004; Pinker, 1997). Although all of these “vertical integration” of all the sciences – from hard mechanisms must be calibrated to the local social, Page 10 Journal of Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives in Education Vol. 3, No. 1 (May 2010), 9-18 cultural, and ecological setting (Geary 2007; Tooby as those comprised by the human brain (Dawkins, & Cosmides 1992), they no more need to be 1986), and there can be little doubt that our “learned” than an infant needs to learn to suckle. evolutionary past continues to influence our This is what inspired Tooby and Cosmides to cognitive and affective lives. proclaim the “twilight of learning as a social science Surely this has implications for educational explanation.” theory and practice. In what follows, we stage three It is important to note that the emphasis in brief discussions on three different educational evolutionary psychology (despite accusations to the issues, each at a different organizational level and contrary) is not on the biological differences each of which might profitably be informed by between people, but
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