2. Few people realise that psychologists also take a vow, promising that at some point in
their professional lives they will publish a book, a chapter or at least an article that
contains the sentence: ‘The human being is the only animal that…’ We are allowed to
fi
nish the sentence any way we like, but it has to start with those eight words.
Most of us wait to relatively late in our careers to ful
fi
l this solemn obligation because
we know that successive generations of psychologists will ignore all the other words
that we managed to pack into a lifetime of well-intentioned scholarship and remember
us mainly for how we
fi
nished The Sentence.
We also know that the worse we do, the better we will be remembered. For instance,
those psychologists who
fi
nished The Sentence with ‘can use language’ were
particularly well remembered when chimpanzees were taught to communicate with
hand signs.
And when researchers discovered that chimps in the wild used sticks to extract tasty
termites from their mounds (and to bash each other over the head now and again), the
world suddenly remembered the full name and mailing address of every psychologist
who ever
fi
nished The Sentence with the words ‘uses tools’.
So it is with good reason that most psychologists put off completing The Sentence for
as long as they can, hoping that if they wait long enough, they might just die in time to
avoid being publicly humiliated by a monkey.
Daniel Gilbert, p3–4 of Stumbling on Happiness Harper Perennial, 2007
3. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
THE FOUNDATIONS OF ECONOMIC MODELLING
▸ Sociobiological explanations rely heavily on models
developed in and for modern economics
▸ Functionality as economic models (game theory)
depending on impact of these models on the economy
▸ Notable absences in these models (e.g. the common good)
also visible in sociobiological theories (e.g. reciprocal
altruism)
4. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
DISCIPLINARY POWER STRUGGLES
Sooner or later, political science, law, economics,
psychology, psychiatry and anthropology will all be
branches of sociobiology.
Robert Trivers, 1977
I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a
hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.
Abraham Maslow, 1966
5. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
TINBERGEN’S FOUR QUESTIONS
▸ Niko Tinbergen, an ethologist, described the four distinct
questions we ask on living nature:
Dynamic view
Explanation of current form in
terms of a historical sequence
Static view
Explanation of the current
form of species
How vs. why
questions
Proximate view
How an individual organism's
structures function
Ontogeny (development)
Developmental explanations
for changes in individuals,
from DNA to their current form
Mechanism (causation)
Mechanistic explanations for
how an organism's structures
work
Ultimate (evolutionary) view
Why a species evolved the
structures (adaptations) it has
Phylogeny (evolution)
The history of the evolution of
sequential changes in
a species over many
generations
Function (adaptation)
A species trait that solves a
reproductive or survival
problem in
the current environment
6. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
▸ In the reading by Segerstråle, she mentions that
evolutionary psychology is a more recent ‘take’ from
sociobiology. Why was the role of the mind (psyche)
largely not considered in the sociobiology debates,
when theories from Freud and Jung (and others)
were widely known?
▸ What are understandings of evolution of the psyche
on human nature?
▸ It need not be adaptive
▸ It need not be cognitive beliefs
7. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
▸ In the reading by Segerstråle, she mentions that
evolutionary psychology is a more recent ‘take’ from
sociobiology. Why was the role of the mind (psyche)
largely not considered in the sociobiology debates,
when theories from Freud and Jung (and others)
were widely known?
▸ What are understandings of evolution of the psyche
on human nature?
▸ It need not be adaptive
▸ It need not be cognitive beliefs
8. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
HUMANS AND OTHER ANIMALS
▸ Are humans animals?
▸ Yes, of course, but…
▸ We are also cultural animals
▸ Which means we inherit behaviours culturally
▸ But we know behaviour is at least partially genetically inheritable
▸ Bird song
▸ Whale song
▸ What gets inherited then? Culture or something biological, or both?
▸ Is behaviour heritable? What sort and how generalised?
10. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
TIMELINE OF SOCIOBIOLOGY
Spencerism
11. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
TIMELINE OF SOCIOBIOLOGY
Spencerism
Social Darwinism
12. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
TIMELINE OF SOCIOBIOLOGY
Spencerism
Social Darwinism
Eugenics
13. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
WW2
TIMELINE OF SOCIOBIOLOGY
Spencerism
Social Darwinism
Eugenics
14. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
WW2
TIMELINE OF SOCIOBIOLOGY
Spencerism
Social Darwinism
Eugenics
Sociobiology
15. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
WW2
TIMELINE OF SOCIOBIOLOGY
Spencerism
Social Darwinism
Eugenics
Sociobiology
Evolutionary psychology
16. ▸ SB 1: Spencer and Wallace [c1855–1865]
▸ SB 2: Eugenics, Social Darwinism
▸ Galton, Youmans, Sumner [c1880s–1920s]
▸ SB 3: Sociobiology
▸ Wilson, Dawkins, Trivers and Hare, Tiger and Fox
[1960s–1970s]
▸ SB 4: Evolutionary psychology
▸ Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby [1990s]
▸ SB 5: [The correct version, as yet unpublished]
THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
BORN AGAIN SOCIOBIOLOGY
17. ▸ SB 1: Spencer and Wallace [c1855–1865]
▸ SB 2: Eugenics, Social Darwinism
▸ Galton, Youmans, Sumner [c1880s–1920s]
▸ SB 3: Sociobiology
▸ Wilson, Dawkins, Trivers and Hare, Tiger and Fox
[1960s–1970s]
▸ SB 4: Evolutionary psychology
▸ Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby [1990s]
▸ SB 5: [The correct version, as yet unpublished]
THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
BORN AGAIN SOCIOBIOLOGY
18. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
BIOLOGY VS CULTURE
▸ Also called “Nature/Nurture” debate
▸ Does culture depend on biology, or is it decoupled from
biology? [“genetic determinism”]
▸ Can we explain why American women in the 1950s shop? Or
can we say that all human women have particular
behaviours?
▸ WEIRD people (Westernised, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic)
▸ Are there human universals?
19. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
UNIVERSALS
▸ Some candidates:
▸ Emotions
▸ Religion
▸ Hierarchy
▸ Problems with universals
▸ De
fi
ned by WEIRD scholars
▸ Projection of cultural values
▸ Not so universal on close inspection
27. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
PHYLOGENETIC INFERENCES
?
LCA 794 Mya
28. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
PHYLOGENETIC INFERENCES
?
LCA 794 Mya
29. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
INHERITED DISPOSITIONS
▸ We inherit the dispositions to acquire certain classes of behaviours in
our development and maturation
▸ Some candidate dispositions:
▸ Language [we acquire it from 0–5 years]
▸ Mating [we acquire the behaviours before we get the biological
urges]
▸ Learning [we are inclined to learn by imitation, and by
demonstration, as well as instruction]
▸ Social structure [we normally form social groups with tribal markers]
30. THE TROUBLE WITH HUMAN NATURE
SUMMARY
▸ Evolutionary explanations are subject to observer bias
▸ We must take care that we do not make our cultural norms
facts of nature
▸ We must distinguish which of Tinbergen’s questions we are
explaining
▸ Not everything is adaptive; some things are by-products
(spandrels)
▸ We must look to our nearest relatives to see what is common to
all apes, in order to see what really is special about humans
