Focus on universals

Focus on variation/diversity

HumanEthology

(50’s & 60’s)(Cultural

Anthropology)

(Human) Sociobiology(70’s & 80’s)

(Human)Socioecology

Evolutionary Psychology

(90’s on)

(Human) Behavioral

Ecology

History (very short) .Evolutionary approach to human behavior has gone by various names, focusing on universals or diversity.

• Individual differences• Learning/experience is everything.

(What have genes got to do with it?)

• Culture is everything. (What have genes got to do with it?)

• Our psychology does not seem to be organized around inclusive fitness.

• Many common human behaviors are patently non-adaptive (contraception, adoption, drug-taking, risk-taking, war, Mother Theresa, etc).

• Evolutionary theory when applied to human behavior is considered morally repugnant (e.g., ‘Social Darwinism’).

Problems humans present to an evolutionary approach to

behavior:

1975

Allen et al: Against “Sociobiology”“What we are left with then is a particular theory about human nature, which has no scientific support, and which upholds the concept of a world with social arrangements remarkably similar to the world which E. O. Wilson inhabits. We are not denying that there are genetic components to human behavior. But we suspect that human biological universals are to be discovered more in the generalities of eating, excreting and sleeping than in such specific and highly variable habits as warfare, sexual exploitation of women and the use of money as a medium of exchange.”

“What Wilson’s book illustrates to us is the enormous difficulty in separating out not only the effects of environment (e.g., cultural transmission) but also the personal and social class prejudice of the researcher. Wilson joins the long parade of biological determinists whose work has served to buttressthe institutions of their society by exonerating them from responsibility for social problems.”

Sociobiology (or Evolutionary Psychology) & Politics

The “Naturalistic Fallacy” : Arguments which draw ethical conclusions from the fact that something is "natural" or "unnatural”. (Hume; Moore)

Evolutionary theory when applied to human behavior is often considered morally repugnant (e.g., ‘Social Darwinism’).

Do you think there is a natural connection between an evolutionary approach to human behavior and a particular political attitude?

The “Naturalistic Fallacy” Arguments which claim to draw ethical conclusions from the fact that something is "natural" or "unnatural". (Hume; Moore)Natural selection is a natural process that increases the frequency of certain genes and eliminates others, that yields some kinds of organisms rather than others; but it is not a process moral or immoral in itself or in its outcome, in the same way as gravity is not a morally laden force. In order to consider some evolutionary events as morally right and others wrong, we must introduce human values.

~ Francisco Ayala

Robert Trivers – the 1st

Evolutionary Psychologist

The evolutionary approach & the ‘Naturalistic Fallacy’ –

Does evolutionary viewpoint imply a particular political point

of view?

Robert Trivers

1971. The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology 46: 35-57.

1972. Parental investment and sexual selection. In Campbell, B. (ed.), Sexual Selection and the descent of man.

1975. Parent-offspring conflict. American Zoologist 14: 249-264.

1976. (with Hare, H.). Haplodiploidy and the evolution of the social insects. Science 191: 249-263.

1982. (with Newton, H.P). The crash of flight 90: doomed by self-deception? Science Digest 111: 66-67.

2011. The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life. Basic Books.

"The benefit of self-deception is the more fluid deception of others. The cost is an impaired ability to deal with reality.“ (Trivers/Newton 1982: 66)

Robert Trivers the first evolutionary psychologist

Robert Triversthe first evolutionary psychologist

1977

The Fallacy of Genetic

Determinism

1995

The Fallacy of Genetic

Determinism

Time 1977 & Time 1995: Role of genes inferred from behavior (and theory)

Time 2004: Key issue is a presumed gene-behavior correlation

Obligate trait: Phenotypic difference is correlated with genetic difference.Term does not imply that environment (experience) has no effect in development or expression of the trait, only that the trait difference can be traced to a genetic difference.Facultative trait: Phenotypic diff. is correlated with environmental diff.Genotype ‘assumes’ and requires environmental difference to produce the phenotypic difference.

Any trait has its underlying genetic-developmental program. Any trait difference can be due to a genetic difference or an environmental (experiential) difference.

Polyphenic development in

spadefoot toad tadpole (genus Spea)Summary of Experiments:

No Yes

Bluegill Sunfish Alternative Reproductive Strategies

Potentially a Facultative Trait