DOCSLIB.ORG

Founders of Evolutionary Psychology

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Founders of Evolutionary Psychology F Founders of Evolutionary through natural, social, or sexual selection. They Psychology are context-dependent and process information according to specific rules as selected for. This Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair may by many be called the Santa Barbara school Department of Psychology, Norwegian of evolutionary psychology, but that specific University of Science and Technology, approach has been somewhat broadened by a Trondheim, Norway greater interest in sex differences and individual differences during the last decades. Founders are those who contributed to the formation of the Synonyms psychological evolutionary research program as it may be recognized today, especially as opposed David Buss; John Tooby; Leda Cosmides; Margo to other evolutionary research programs within Wilson; Martin Daly human behavioral science such as human behav- ioral ecology or gene-culture coevolution. Foun- ders presented in the following include John Definition Tooby and Leda Cosmides, Margo Wilson and Martin Daly, and David Buss. These were histor- Evolutionary psychology is a psychological sci- ically the five scholars who worked on the very ence where hypotheses are informed by evolu- first “Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology” at tionary theory (especially middle-level theories, Palo Alto. such as Trivers’ parental investment theory or life history theory, see Buss 1995), as well as a con- sideration of known features of the species’ rele- Introduction vant evolutionary past, i.e., relevant selection forces. In addition, there is a specific model of Evolutionary psychology was founded in the mind, where one considers the mind made up of a 1980s, developed into a comprehensive and mosaic of mental mechanisms. This form of mod- burgeoning field during the 1990s, and slowly ularity follows Pinker’s(1997)definition where became an integrated part of psychology in gen- modules are only partially informationally com- eral the last 20 years. Considering the foundations partmentalized, not Jerry Fodor’s more informa- of evolutionary psychology therefore warrants a tionally encapsulated definition, as the modules look at papers written during the 1980s and the are partly interacting and partly informationally early 1990s, as well as work that has influenced encapsulated. These mechanisms are designed the field the last 30 years. # Springer International Publishing AG 2016 T.K. Shackelford, V.A. Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1855-1 2 Founders of Evolutionary Psychology There are three major research labs/groups that this was in the development of any scientific psy- may be recognized as foundational and will be chology. Certainly Darwin’s work on human emo- considered in greater detail in this chapter, tions is one of the first works on human although they all met at Harvard: John Tooby psychological features from an evolutionary per- and Leda Cosmides, founding directors of the spective, and he is also one of the first develop- Center of Evolutionary Psychology at the Univer- mental psychologists with his observational study sity of California at Santa Barbara; Margo Wilson of his own child published in Mind. Pioneers such and Martin Daly, McMaster University, Canada; as William James and Sigmund Freud also were and David Buss, at Harvard, University of Mich- famously interested in phylogenetic musings and igan, and the University of Texas at Austin in speculation. Prominent mainstream theorists such charge of the evolutionary psychology and indi- as John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth were explic- vidual differences graduate program. itly evolutionary, despite many current attachment The current chapter will provide a brief intro- scientists downplaying the evolutionary founda- duction to some of the most influential contribu- tions of their classical theoretical work. Within tors to the formulation and foundation of anxiety theory, mainstream clinical work has mainstream evolutionary psychology (EP). This always been based on an appreciation of the research program was developed through more or evolved functional underpinnings (Kennair less formal meetings over several years, but was 2007; Marks and Nesse 1994). However, none most clearly formulated by John Tooby and Leda of these previous evolutionary approaches to Cosmides as what is sometimes referred to as the behavior or psychology were part of an organized Santa Barbara school. Parallel to Tooby and theoretical framework or research program. The Cosmides’ empirical work, Margo Wilson and most influential approach to human evolved Martin Daly published large studies based on behavior prior to the advent of evolutionary psy- basic EP principles. The major communicator of chology was human sociobiology, strongly EP within academia is probably David Buss, who influenced by E.O. Wilson’s popular work on in addition to large empirical studies also added a sociobiology, heralding the use of recent theoret- focus on sex differences to the mainstream EP ical developments in evolutionary biology to research program, as well as personality and indi- investigate behavior in animals, including vidual differences. While many more humans. researchers – both independent and collaborators It is important to note at this point the differ- of the aforementioned – have also contributed to ence in considering manifest behavior versus con- mainstream modern EP, this chapter will be sidering the underlying evolved mental restricted to the basic contributions of these five mechanisms. Dennett suggested that EP is merely founders. the marriage of sociobiology with cognitive sci- ence. This might not fully appreciate the complex- Evolutionary Psychology Is Not Sociobiology ity of focusing on the adaptation as a cognitive Historically, evolutionary psychology is obvi- structure (Kennair 2002). Once one accepts men- ously not the first evolutionary approach to behav- tal mechanisms as the relevant object of study, ior, psychology, or human nature. In Origin something behaviorists such as Wilson was hesi- Darwin is often quoted as pointing out that he tant to do, this affects both methods and how one believes that “In the distant future I see open fields implements theory in generating hypotheses. for far more important researches. Psychology First, one stops primarily counting babies; that will be based on a new foundation, that of the is, one stops to primarily consider current selec- necessary acquirement of each mental power and tion or adaptiveness. Don Symons was dismissive capacity by gradation.” of evolutionary oriented scholars who sought a This is an interesting quote, but from a histor- psychologically agnostic science, where humans ical perspective, it is important to note how early are fitness maximizers. Cosmides and Tooby Founders of Evolutionary Psychology 3 (1987) provide the link between manifest behav- Trivers (1972, 1974) might be implemented in ior and evolutionary science: the evolved psycho- research. George Williams also provided funda- logical adaptation. mental insight, through the focus on formal It takes time to construct human mental mech- criteria of the adaptation. It is important to note anisms through selection. Human universals, and that the field also in general clearly identifies with thereby the cognitive underpinnings of our human Williams’ refutation of group selection and his nature, have to have been in place before humans focus on the adaptation. From an evolutionary migrated out of Africa. It is therefore not neces- psychology perspective, group selectionist sarily our current environment we are adapted to, models are moot. Thus evolutionary psycholo- but rather the relevant selection forces that were gists in general take a Darwinian, gene level selec- stable enough across deep time to design the men- tionist approach, focusing on inclusive fitness and tal mechanisms that make up universal human middle-level theories (i.e., Trivers 1972) or spe- nature. Environments change faster than selection cific versions of these (i.e., sexual strategy theory, can form adaptations, especially when species Buss and Schmitt 1993) that may generate testable migrate as far as humans have. Such mismatch hypotheses and predictions (Buss 1995; Ketelaar makes it less relevant to consider current adap- and Ellis 2000). tiveness, but predictable output from hypothe- In addition to focusing on identifying mental sized mental adaptations may be studied, and adaptations and using middle-level theories, an design features may be discerned based on such evolutionary psychology approach builds on output. what is known about the species’ relevant evolu- While sociobiology considered current adap- tionary past: the relevant selection forces or the tiveness and built upon a behaviorist psychologi- environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA). cal model that studied behavior in current Knowledge about selection forces may suggest environments, evolutionary psychology predicts how specific traits could be shaped today. The that mental mechanisms have been formed over combination of these two aspects provides the evolutionary time due to middle-level evolution- evolutionary basis of evolutionary psychology ary theory and available knowledge about the hypothesis and prediction generation. relevant selection forces (EEA). Evolutionary At this point it may also be important to note psychology thus focuses on adaptations and is the following: Evolutionary psychology is not a inherently founded on a mainstream social- comparative approach, like sociobiology
Load more

Recommended publications
  • THE DESCENT of MADNESS: Evolutionary Origins of Psychosis
    THE DESCENT OF MADNESS Drawing on evidence from across the behavioural and natural sciences, this book advances a radical new hypothesis: that madness exists as a costly consequence of the evolution of a sophisticated social brain in Homo sapiens. Having explained the rationale for an evolutionary approach to psych- osis, the author makes a case for psychotic illness in our living ape relatives, as well as in human ancestors. He then reviews existing evolutionary theor- ies of psychosis, before introducing his own thesis: that the same genes causing madness are responsible for the evolution of our highly social brain. Jonathan Burns’ novel Darwinian analysis of the importance of psychosis for human survival provides some meaning for this form of suffering. It also spurs us on to a renewed commitment to changing our societies in a way that allows the mentally ill the opportunity of living. The Descent of Madness will be of interest to those in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, sociology and anthropology, and is also accessible to the general reader. Jonathan Burns is chief specialist psychiatrist at the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine. His main areas of research include psychotic illnesses, human brain evolution and evolutionary origins of psychosis. THE DESCENT OF MADNESS Evolutionary Origins of Psychosis and the Social Brain Jonathan Burns First published 2007 by Routledge 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2007 Jonathan Burns This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
    [Show full text]
  • Raising-Darwins-Consciousness.Pdf
    RAISING DARWIN'S CONSCIOUSNESS Female Sexuality and the Prehominid Origins of Patriarchy Sarah Blaffer Hrdy University of California, Davis Sociobiologists and feminists agree that men in patriarchal social systems seek to control females, but sociobiologists go further, using Darwin's theory of sexual selection and Trivers's ideas on parental investment to explain why males should attempt to control female sexuality. From this perspective, the stage for the development under some conditions of patriarchal social systems was set over the course of primate evolution. Sexual selection encompasses both competition between males and female choice. But in applying this theory to our "lower origins" (pre- hominid ancestors), Darwin assumed that choices were made by essen- tially "coy" females. I argue here that female solicitation of multiple males (either simultaneously or sequentially, depending on the breeding system) characterized prehominid females; this prehominid legacy of cy- clical sexual assertiveness, itself possibly a female counter-strategy to male efforts to control the timing of female reproduction, generated fur- ther male counter-strategies. This dialectic had important implications for emerging hominid mating systems, human evolution, and the devel- opment of patriarchal arrangements in some human societies. For homi- nid males who will invest in offspring, there would be powerful selection for emotions, behaviors, and customs that ensure them certainty of pater- nity. The sexual modesty that so struck Darwin can be explained as a recent evolved or learned (perhaps both) adaptation in women to avoid penalties imposed by patrilines on daughters and mates who failed to conform to the patriline's prevailing norms for their sex.
    [Show full text]
  • In Defense of Massive Modularity
    3 In Defense of Massive Modularity Dan Sperber In October 1990, a psychologist, Susan Gelman, and three anthropolo- gists whose interest in cognition had been guided and encouraged by Jacques Mehler, Scott Atran, Larry Hirschfeld, and myself, organized a conference on “Cultural Knowledge and Domain Specificity” (see Hirsch- feld and Gelman, 1994). Jacques advised us in the preparation of the conference, and while we failed to convince him to write a paper, he did play a major role in the discussions. A main issue at stake was the degree to which cognitive development, everyday cognition, and cultural knowledge are based on dedicated do- main-specific mechanisms, as opposed to a domain-general intelligence and learning capacity. Thanks in particular to the work of developmental psychologists such as Susan Carey, Rochel Gelman, Susan Gelman, Frank Keil, Alan Leslie, Jacques Mehler, Elizabeth Spelke (who were all there), the issue of domain-specificity—which, of course, Noam Chomsky had been the first to raise—was becoming a central one in cognitive psychol- ogy. Evolutionary psychology, represented at the conference by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, was putting forward new arguments for seeing human cognition as involving mostly domain- or task-specific evolved adaptations. We were a few anthropologists, far from the main- stream of our discipline, who also saw domain-specific cognitive pro- cesses as both constraining and contributing to cultural development. Taking for granted that domain-specific dispositions are an important feature of human cognition, three questions arise: 1. To what extent are these domain-specific dispositions based on truly autonomous mental mechanisms or “modules,” as opposed to being 48 D.
    [Show full text]
  • Iciumv LEADERS in ANIMAL BEHAVIOR the Second Generation
    UO1BJ3U3D iciumv LEADERS IN ANIMAL BEHAVIOR The Second Generation Edited by Lee C. Drickamer Northern Arizona University Donald A. Dewsbury University of Florida CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 13 Myths, monkeys, and motherhood: a compromising life SARAH BLAFFER HRDY Definition of an Anthropologist: "(Someone) who studies human nature in all its diversity." Carmelo Lison-Tolosana (1966) Maternal effects (1946-64) From a young age, I was interested in why humans do what they do. With little exposure to science, certainly no inkling that there might be people in the world who studied other animals in order to better understand our species, I decided to become a novelist. Born in Leaders in Animal Behavior: The Setond Generation, ed. L. C. Drickamcr & D. A. Dewsbury. Published by Cambridge University Press. CO Cambridge University Press 2010. 344 Sarah Bluffer Hrdy Texas in 1946, right at the start of the postwar baby boom, I was the third of five children - Speedway. Prevailin four daughters and finally the long-awaited son. My father's father, R. L. Blaffer, had come segregation, and pi to Texas from Hamburg via New Orleans in 1901 at the time oil was discovered at interested in the e1 Spindletop. He recognized that fortunes would be made in the oil business. He married inheritance, female Sarah Campbell from Lampasas, whose father was in that business. I was named for her, the women's moven Sarah Campbell Blaffer II. My mother's father's ancestors, the Hardins, French Huguenots Reared by a suo from Tennessee, arrived earlier, in 1825, before Texas was even a state.
    [Show full text]
  • Cinderella Effect Facts
    The “Cinderella effect”: Elevated mistreatment of stepchildren in comparison to those living with genetic parents. Martin Daly & Margo Wilson Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4K1 <[email protected]> <[email protected]> Theory Parents commit a huge amount of time, attention and material resources to the care of their children, as well as incurring life-threatening risks to defend them and bodily depletion to nourish them. Why are parents motivated to invest so heavily in their children? From an evolutionary perspective, the answer is surely that natural selection has favoured intensive parental care in our lineage. Those ancestral genotypes and phenotypes that best succeeded in raising children to become reproducing adults were the ones that persisted and proliferated. If the psychological underpinnings of parental care have indeed evolved by natural selection, we may furthermore anticipate that parental feeling and action will not typically be elicited by just any random conspecific juvenile. Instead, care-providing animals may be expected to direct their care selectively towards young who are (a) their own genetic offspring rather than those of their reproductive rivals, and (b) able to convert parental investment into increased prospects for survival and reproduction. This is the kernel of the theory of discriminative parental solicitude, which (notwithstanding some interesting twists and caveats) has been abundantly verified in a broad range of care-giving species
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction ROBERT AUNGER a Number of Prominent Academics
    CHAPTER 1: Introduction ROBERT AUNGER A number of prominent academics have recently argued that we are entering a period in which evolutionary theory is being applied to every conceivable domain of inquiry. Witness the development of fields such as evolutionary ecology (Krebs and Davies 1997), evolutionary economics (Nelson and Winter 1982), evolutionary psychology (Barkow et al. 1992), evolutionary linguistics (Pinker 1994) and literary theory (Carroll 1995), evolutionary epistemology (Callebaut and Pinxten 1987), evolutionary computational science (Koza 1992), evolutionary medicine (Nesse and Williams 1994) and psychiatry (McGuire and Troisi 1998) -- even evolutionary chemistry (Wilson and Czarnik 1997) and evolutionary physics (Smolin 1997). Such developments certainly suggest that Darwin’s legacy continues to grow. The new millennium can therefore be called the Age of Universal Darwinism (Dennett 1995; Cziko 1995). What unifies these approaches? Dan Dennett (1995) has argued that Darwin’s “dangerous idea” is an abstract algorithm, often called the “replicator dynamic.” This dynamic consists of repeated iterations of selection from among randomly mutating replicators. Replicators, in turn, are units of information with the ability to reproduce themselves using resources from some material substrate. Couched in these terms, the evolutionary process is obviously quite general. for example, the replicator dynamic, when played out on biological material such as DNA, is called natural selection. But Dennett suggests there are essentially no limits to the phenomena which can be treated using this algorithm, although there will be variation in the degree to which such treatment leads to productive insights. The primary hold-out from “evolutionarization,” it seems, is the social sciences. Twenty-five years have now passed since the biologist Richard Dawkins introduced the notion of a meme, or an idea that becomes commonly shared through social transmission, into the scholastic lexicon.
    [Show full text]
  • Review of Jerry Fodor, the Mind Doesn't Work That Way
    The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology (review) Ray Jackendoff Language, Volume 78, Number 1, March 2002, pp. 164-170 (Review) Published by Linguistic Society of America DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2002.0024 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/19286 [ Access provided at 10 May 2020 20:12 GMT from Linguistic Society of America ] 164 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 78, NUMBER 1 (2002) malist studies as the brief summary of the chapters has hopefully shown. All articles complement the work of the festschrift’s honoree, are well-written, and contain interesting data as well as intriguing analyses, pushing the minimalist spirit further ahead. REFERENCES BOSˇKOVIC´,Zˇ ELJKO. 1994. D-structure, theta-criterion, and movement into theta-positions. Linguistic Analysis 24.247–86. MM. 1997. Superiority effects with multiple wh-fronting in Serbo-Croatian. Lingua 102.1–20. CHOMSKY,NOAM. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. MM. 2001. Derivation by phase. Ken Hale: A life in language, ed. by Michael Kenstowicz, 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. GRIMSHAW,JANE, and ARMIN MESTER. 1988. Light verbs and ␪-marking. Linguistic Inquiry 19.205–32. HORNSTEIN,NORBERT. 1995. Logical form: From GB to minimalism. Oxford: Blackwell. KAYNE,RICHARD S. 1994. The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ZAS Ja¨gerstr. 10–11 10117 Berlin Germany [[email protected]] The mind doesn’t work that way: Thescopeand limits of computational psychology. By JERRY FODOR. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000. Pp. 126. Reviewed by RAY JACKENDOFF, Brandeis University* As has been his wont in recent years, Jerry Fodor offers here a statement of deepest pessimism about the possibility of doing cognitive science except in a very limited class of subdomains.
    [Show full text]
  • The Theoretical Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology
    3GC01 06/09/2015 12:40:42 Page 3 Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2015). The theoretical foundations of evolutionary psychology. In Buss, D. M. (Ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, Second edition. Volume 1: Foundations. (pp. 3-87). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. CHAPTER 1 The Theoretical Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology JOHN TOOBY and LEDA COSMIDES THE EMERGENCE OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: WHAT IS AT STAKE? HE THEORY OF evolution by natural selection has revolutionary implications for understanding the design of the human mind and brain, as Darwin himself was Tthe first to recognize (Darwin, 1859). Indeed, a principled understanding of the network of causation that built the functional architecture of the human species offers the possibility of transforming the study of humanity into a natural science capable of precision and rapid progress. Yet, more than a century and a half after The Origin of Species was published, many of the psychological, social, and behavioral sciences continue to be grounded on assumptions that evolutionarily informed researchers know to be false; the rest have only in the past few decades set to work on the radical reformulations of their disciplines necessary to make them consistent with findings in the evolutionary sciences, information theory, computer science, physics, the neuro- sciences, molecular and cellular biology, genetics, behavioral ecology, hunter-gatherer studies, biological anthropology, primatology, and so on (Pinker, 1997, 2002; Tooby & Cosmides, 1992). Evolutionary psychology is the long-forestalled scientific attempt to assemble out of the disjointed, fragmentary, and mutually contradictory human disciplines a single, logically integrated research framework for the psychological, social, and behavioral sciences—a framework that not only incorporates the evolu- tionary sciences and information theory on a full and equal basis, but that systemati- cally works out all the revisions in existing belief and research practice that such a synthesis requires (Tooby & Cosmides, 1992).
    [Show full text]
  • Preferences Under Pressure
    Eric Skoog Preferences Under Pressure Conflict, Threat Cues and Willingness to Compromise Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Zootissalen, EBC, Villavägen 9, Uppsala, Friday, 13 March 2020 at 10:15 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Faculty examiner: Associate Professor Thomas Zeitzoff (American University, School of Public Affairs). Abstract Skoog, E. 2020. Preferences Under Pressure. Conflict, Threat Cues and Willingness to Compromise. Report / Department of Peace and Conflict Research 121. 66 pp. Uppsala: Department of Peace and Conflict Research. ISBN 978-91-506-2805-0. Understanding how preferences are formed is a key question in the social sciences. The ability of agents to interact with each other is a prerequisite for well-functioning societies. Nevertheless, the process whereby the preferences of agents in conflict are formed have often been black boxed, and the literature on the effects of armed conflict on individuals reveals a great variation in terms of outcomes. Sometimes, individuals are willing to cooperate and interact even with former enemies, while sometimes, we see outright refusal to cooperate or interact at all. In this dissertation, I look at the role of threat in driving some of these divergent results. Armed conflict is rife with physical threats to life, limb and property, and there has been much research pointing to the impact of threat on preferences, attitudes and behavior. Research in the field of evolutionary psychology has revealed that threat is not a singular category, but a nuanced phenomenon, where different types of threat may lead to different responses.
    [Show full text]
  • States in Mind Anthony C. Lopez, Rose Mcdermott, and Michael
    States in Mind States in Mind Anthony C. Lopez, Rose McDermott, and Evolution, Coalitional Psychology, and Michael Bang International Politics Petersen One of the most com- monly studied puzzles in international politics is the recurrence of coalitional competition and aggression between political groups such as states. Indeed, this pattern constitutes an enduring and central feature of all politics. Yet de- spite the tragic endurance of this leitmotif throughout history, its manifestation varies through time and space. Some wars are fought for honor or revenge, whereas others are ignited for mere opportunism or as a consequence of vari- ous misperceptions, whatever their source. We argue that evolutionary theory provides a theoretical framework that can explain both the stubborn endur- ance and dynamic diversity of coalitional behavior. Debate on the relevance of “human nature” and biological factors for explaining political behavior is not new.1 Yet the comprehensive value of evo- lutionary theory for explaining important aspects of international politics has not been adequately explicated. As we discuss below, this has in part been a consequence of general skepticism about the validity and scope of evolution- ary theory for explaining political behavior. We argue, however, that evolu- tionary psychology can generate falsiªable ex ante predictions that are of central interest to the study of international politics, and we offer several hy- potheses derived from this model to illustrate the depth of this approach. Evo- lutionary psychologists have already generated a large body of work that suggests that the human brain contains webs of psychological mechanisms, or adaptations, each designed to operate in domains relevant to modern politics, and which emerged as a product of natural selection.
    [Show full text]
  • Evolution, Child Abuse and the Constitution Christopher Malrborough
    Journal of Law and Policy Volume 11 | Issue 2 Article 6 2003 Evolution, Child Abuse and the Constitution Christopher Malrborough Follow this and additional works at: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/jlp Recommended Citation Christopher Malrborough, Evolution, Child Abuse and the Constitution, 11 J. L. & Pol'y (2003). Available at: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/jlp/vol11/iss2/6 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at BrooklynWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Law and Policy by an authorized editor of BrooklynWorks. MARLBOROUGHMACROX.DOC 6/25/03 5:10 PM EVOLUTION, CHILD ABUSE AND THE CONSTITUTION Christopher Marlborough* INTRODUCTION The presence of a non-genetic parent in a child’s home is the largest single risk factor for severe child maltreatment yet discovered.1 Professor Owen Jones has used the example of stepparent infanticide to explain how evolutionary analysis in law can serve society’s goals when prevailing theories have failed.2 * Brooklyn Law School Class of 2003; B.A., State University of New York at Purchase, 1991. I would like to thank Professors Jennifer Rosato and Bailey Kuklin for their input and guidance in writing this note and my lovely wife Jennifer for her infinite patience. 1 MARTIN DALY & MARGO WILSON, THE TRUTH ABOUT CINDERELLA: A DARWINIAN VIEW OF PARENTAL LOVE 7 (1998) [hereinafter DALY & WILSON, CINDERELLA]. 2 Owen Jones, Evolutionary Analysis in Law: An Introduction and Application to Child Abuse, 75 N.C. L. REV. 1117 (1997) [hereinafter Jones, Child Abuse]. Professor Jones suggests a four-stage process to determine when evolutionary principles can be helpful to inform legal policy.
    [Show full text]
  • The Descent of Edward Wilson
    prospectmagazine.co.uk http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/edward-wilson-social-conquest- earth-evolutionary-errors-origin-species/ The descent of Edward Wilson A new book on evolution by a great biologist makes a slew of mistakes The Social Conquest of Earth By Edward O Wilson (WW Norton, £18.99, May) When he received the manuscript of The Origin of Species, John Murray, the publisher, sent it to a referee who suggested that Darwin should jettison all that evolution stuff and concentrate on pigeons. It’s funny in the same way as the spoof review of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which praised its interesting “passages on pheasant raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways of controlling vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper” but added: “Unfortunately one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savour these sidelights on the management of a Midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer’s opinion this book can not take the place of JR Miller’s Practical Gamekeeping.” I am not being funny when I say of Edward Wilson’s latest book that there are interesting and informative chapters on human evolution, and on the ways of social insects (which he knows better than any man alive), and it was a good idea to write a book comparing these two pinnacles of social evolution, but unfortunately one is obliged to wade through many pages of erroneous and downright perverse misunderstandings of evolutionary theory. In particular, Wilson now rejects “kin selection” (I shall explain this below) and replaces it with a revival of “group selection”—the poorly defined and incoherent view that evolution is driven by the differential survival of whole groups of organisms.
    [Show full text]