----- Original Message ----- From: Eva Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >the suicidal tendecy of the present system?? Surely >the selfish gene wants the human species to survive... No, it want's itself to survive. The selfish gene cares only about itself. Moreover, evolutionary psychology is THE science of human behavior. HANDBOOK OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: Ideas Issues and Applications, Eds. Charles Crawford & Dennis Krebs; Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998 http://www.erlbaum.com/2621.htm Here is a sample: ----------------------- INCOMPATIBILITY OF EVOLUTIONARY AND NONEVOLUTIONARY EXPLANATIONS Must evolutionary and nonevolutionary explanations make different predictions? To answer this question consider two sets of explanations. The first set contains explanations that were explicitly constructed with evolutionary theory in mind. The second set contains explanations that were developed without any explicit knowledge of evolutionary theory. However, some of these latter explanations, such as commonsense explanations like, "Blood is thicker than water," and, "It is a wise father that knows his own child," are compatible with evolutionary theory, although they were devised without knowledge of it. Other members of this second set, such as those designed to explain true altruism, where fitness costs outweigh benefits, are incompatible with the logic of evolution by natural selection. Thus, the greater set of all explanations that are compatible with evolutionary theory includes all of Set I and some overlap from Set 2. Explanations that are not compatible with evolutionary theory can be thought of as "warp drive" explanations because warp drive is what the crew of the Starship Enterprise use when they wish to violate Einstein's theory of relativity to travel faster than the speed of light. Developing explanations of physical phenomena that violate Einstein's theory of relativity is risky, as is developing explanations about behavior that violate Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Hence, it is likely that any good explanation of behavior will be compatible with an evolutionary explanation, even if it were not explicitly developed from an evolutionary perspective. Although a good explanation of behavior need not have been explicitly constructed from an evolutionary perspective, the contributors to this volume are committed to the proposition that an explicit consideration of evolutionary theory will improve the quality of explanations of human behavior. Why do they believe this? First, explicit evolutionary thinking can sometimes eliminate certain kinds of errors in thinking about behavior (Symons, 1987). For example, it has been seen that explanations that implicitly assume organisms have evolved to act for the good of their group or species should be treated with considerable skepticism. In addition, use of the theory can sometimes help prevent one from making and accepting moralistic fallacies--where one assumes that what ought to be actually is. Consider some examples. Stepparents ought to treat their natural and stepchildren equally. However, when Daly and Wilson (1980) applied evolutionary thinking to the problem of child abuse, they found that stepparents were a major source of abuse. There ought not to be conflict within families, but Trivers (1974) has used evolutionary theory to help us understand the within-family conflict that has perplexed us for generations. Recently, Haig (1993) argued for the occurrence of mother-offspring conflict during gestation. Men and women ought to have the same intellectual abilities, but Silverman and Eals (1992) have been able to use evolutionary thinking to predict and explain gender differences in some perceptual abilities. A rigorous application of evolutionary theory may help us identify and deal with other oughts that contradict reality. Second, because the theory of evolution explains the evolution of all life forms, concepts developed when using it are likely to be very general. Kinship theory (Hamilton, 1964), parental investment theory (Trivers, 1972), sexual-selection theory (Darwin, 1871/1898), and reciprocity theory (Trivers, 1971), for example, have been used to explain behavior in a great many species of animals. For many, it is intellectually satisfying to use the same theoretical framework, such as kin selection, to help explain sterile castes in worker bees, wasps, and ants (Hamilton, 1964); alarm calling in ground squirrels (Sherman, 1977); helping at the nest in jays (Woolfenden & Fitzpatrick, 1984); suicide in humans (de Catanzaro, 1991); the naming of natural and adoptive children (Johnson, McAndrew, & Harris, 1991); mortality and risk during a crisis year (McCullough & Barton, 1991); genetic relatedness, the biological importance of a decision, and decision rules (Burnstein, Crandall, & Kitayama, 1994); village fissioning among hunter-gatherers (Chagnon & Irons, 1979); and whom new babies are said to resemble (Daly & Wilson, 1982). Third, and most important, the theory of evolution can be used to help scholars and scientists develop substantive testable predictions about human behavior. Cosmides (1989) used it to make predictions about content effects in logical reasoning. Silverman and Eals (1992) used it to make predictions about gender differences in spatial abilities. Singh (1993) used it to make predictions about preferences for body images. Buss (1994) used it to make predictions about gender differences in mate choice criteria and tactics for acquiring mates. Orians and Heerwagen (1992) used it to make predictions about evoked responses to landscapes. Several chapters in Part III of this book discuss recent research in which various aspects of evolutionary theory were used to derive testable predictions about human behavior. [pp. 8-10] Jay ------------------------- COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
