The Selfish Nature of Human Cooperation
An optimistic anthropological perspective on human nature has emerged in the last two decades: the view that cooperation is the most essential human activity and that conflict, violence, and moral…
Posts by tag
Human Nature
13 posts
Female Intrasexual Competition: From Demons to Better Angels
Unlike the violence that men engage in when the demons of their gender take hold, the aggression that women show towards each other is not so easily and publicly understood.
Why Good People Turn Bad Online
Meet the scientists finding out how we can defeat our inner trolls and build more cooperative digital societies. On the evening of 17 February 2018, Professor Mary Beard posted on…
Understanding Human Nature Is the Best Way of Fixing Our Political Culture
Many factors contribute to political divisiveness and rancor. Some of them are natural and nearly inevitable aspects of fundamental human nature, but others are not. Of those that are not,…
Activism and the Conflict of Visions
I recently read Thomas Sowell’s classic work A Conflict of Visions. In it, he attempts to describe two different foundational worldviews, or visions, which are implicit in the thinking of…
Rejected By the Tribe: What Political Extremists Reveal About the Rest of Us
Persecution, or the perception thereof, is a powerful social glue.
Evolution, Rape, and Power: Why Understanding Human Nature Matters
Understanding ourselves may help us to reduce sexual violence.
Sowell’s Visions
Why do beliefs cluster the way they do? If someone believes that only police and military should have guns, why is that person also likely to support socialized healthcare and…
A Primer on Statistics to Help Quell Your Outrage at the Google Memo
By now you’ll probably know that Google employee James Damore recently published a memo regarding differences in population averages in some traits in men and women, questioning the basis for…
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…
In Defense of the Google Manifesto
James Damore, the Google employee who wrote the viral Google manifesto, was fired yesterday for “perpetuating gender stereotypes.” From the various reactions I’ve read, you would think Damore wrote the next…
15 Years Later, Why Do We Still Believe in the Blank Slate?
On Twitter, I once saw a cultural anthropologist refer to Steven Pinker’s toenails as “magical” when accosting an evolutionary psychologist who had angered him. Some time later, on another scroll…
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),…
