Good News Is No News
How many upbeat articles have you come across since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged? Not many, probably. While the pandemic hasn’t exactly been a cheerful time, consider what should have been…
Share
Posts by tag
Evolutionary Psychology
23 posts
When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment and Assault
The topic of David Buss’s new book, When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment and Assault, has scarcely ever been more relevant. It seems that, every…
Share
Pretty Privilege
What is it like to be pretty? When we think of someone beautiful, we tend to assume that his or her looks privilege has to be accompanied by some negative…
Share
Social Justice Culture and Toxic Femininity
Western culture, we’re told, is suffused with toxic masculinity. Traditionally masculine traits like strength, reticence and stoicism have degenerated into misogyny and violence, which now pervade our cultural norms and…
Share
Why Do Women Orgasm?
Researchers have long been fascinated by the female orgasm. It isn’t necessary for a woman to orgasm during sexual intercourse in order to become pregnant. By contrast, in men, orgasm…
Share
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…
Share
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…
Share
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…
Share
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,…
Share
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…
Share
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…
Share
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…
Share
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…
Share
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…
Share
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…
Share
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…
Share
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…
Share
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…
Share