The Uniqueness of Mammals
In 2017, I presented a paper at the Florida Academy of Sciences entitled “The Importance of Being a Mammal.” Its thesis was threefold. First, a number of behaviours appear to…
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Evolutionary Psychology
18 posts
Evolutionary Psychology: Predictively Powerful or Riddled with Just-So Stories?
This essay is part of a series on the value of evolutionary approaches to psychology. Part 1 clears away seven key misconceptions. Part 2 shows why evolution is necessary for…
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The Why is Not the Same as the How: Levels of Analysis and Scientific Progress in Psychology
The emerald-colored jewel wasp (Ampulex compressa) parasitizes the common cockroach with a sophistication that beggars the imagination. Here’s how the morbid scene unfolds. The wasp begins by injecting a venomous…
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The Uses and Abuses of the Human Sciences
We are awash in the language of the human sciences. Each new day brings a slew of hyperbolic headlines, each brandishing the results of some recently published study that claims,…
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Seven Key Misconceptions about Evolutionary Psychology
Evolutionary approaches to psychology hold the promise of revolutionizing the field and unifying it with the biological sciences. But among both academics and the general public, a few key misconceptions…
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Of Rats, Voles and Online Porn
Rats in a Skinner Box Rats wired up to electrodes, housed in an experimental Skinner box, continually press a button to give themselves powerful, pleasurable sensations. The rats go into…
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The Ape That Understood the Universe: Book Review
We humans take so much of reality for granted that it is often difficult to recognize which phenomena even require explanation. This is especially true of human behavior, as Steve…
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Who or What Are We Human Mammalia, Really?
Warning Assimilation of the concepts herein may lead to mental anxiety if the external world is believed to be reality. Who or What Are We? We have an unbroken lineal…
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Aping Around: The Importance of Our Animal Nature
Charles Darwin published the Origin of Species more than 150 years ago, in 1859, to share the discovery that the slow processes of evolution have shaped us, along with all…
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Will Declining Monogamy Lead to an Increase in Violence?
The Invention of Gender Inequality Ever since sex was first “invented” a little more than a billion years ago, it’s been the source of endless problems. For sure, it has…
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The Water We Swim In: A Need to Look at Causes as Well as Effects.
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the…
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The Task Facing Masculinity.
“I think everyone would agree the world would be a better place if we had less testosterone.” My friend shared this quote with me in bemusement after he heard it…
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The Evolutionary Roots of Identity Politics
“We have constructed pyramids in honor of our escaping…” — James Douglas Morrison It seems these days whether you are an Islamist in Dhaka, an Antifa extremist in Boston, a…
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Assessing Female Mate Preferences: Answers to Ten Common Criticisms of Evolutionary Psychology
A few years ago, I was giving an invited presentation to an audience of mostly sociologists and family studies professors on the topic of evolution and human reproductive strategies. I…
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Sex and Gender Are Dials (Not Switches)
It has become more and more common for young people around the world to describe themselves not as a “man” or a “woman,” but as “something else.” One term for…
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Postmodernists Don’t Understand Evolutionary Psychology
“Racist Wilson, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” — A member from the International Committee Against Racism (prior to dumping a pitcher of water on E.O. Wilson’s head),…
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What You’re Attracted to Isn’t “Socially Constructed”
In recent years, many individuals on the political left have been earnestly conveying the message that what a person is attracted to (i.e. mate preference) is entirely constructed by the…
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Evolutionary Psychology in the Humanities: Shakespeare’s Othello
“We believe that works of art are shaped by our evolved human nature, by culture and by individual experience. We therefore distinguish ourselves from cultural constructivists who effectively give exclusive…
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