Lecture 6 Flashcards
Can evolution be applied to academic areas outside of biology?
Yes, it can be applied to all the sciences, art, english, law and so on. Psychology has applied the idea of evolution, however, english etc still haven’t. There are many reasons why they might be resistant; genetic determinism (excludes free will), all research involves post-hoc explanations (creating hypotheses after the data has been collected), it has caused many awful events like eugenics, nazism etc.. Also, when researchers try to discuss this phenomenon, it can be labelled as naturalistic fallacy; assuming the researchers are claiming it ‘ought to happen’ rather than this ‘is what happened’.
Compare the medical model of illness and the evolutionary model
The medical model argues that the body is like a machine and is vulnerable to wear and tear resulting in the machine breaking eventually.
However, darwinian medicene argues that we get sick because of an evolutionary mismatch; evolved traits that were once advantageous but are now maladaptive due to environmental change (evolution doesn’t care about health, only fitness and therefore doesn’t evolve against these sicknesses), the coevolution of pathogens and because the feelings of illness could be adaptations; morning sickness, fever (heat killing the pathogens) and runny nose (flushing out pathogens).
How can post-partum depression be explained from an evolutionary perspective?
What about infanticide?
There is a link between postpartum depression and problems with birth which results in lower breast feeding rates. This could be because the health problems cause the mother to develop depression and disengage from the infant that potentially has low fitness. Additionally, postpartum depression can develop due to a lack of social support which decreases the investment in the child and the fitness of the child.
It can be adaptive for infanticide to occur as raising an ‘unfit’ child is more costly than killing it and investing in a child in the future, thus increasing the parent’s reproductive value. Evidence supports this as the younger the mother the more common infanticide is. Also, infanticide is significantly more common when there is a step-parent, perhaps because the child does not benefit their fitness.
Relate evolution to sociology
There is evidence that the more money people have, the happier they are. This could perhaps be because they have a lot of resources and therefore increased fitness. However, this positive relationship plateaus, perhaps because money no longer has a fitness advantage; you have everything you need. Also, when there is high economic inequality, life expectancy is worse and so is imprisonment, this could be because the population of the unwealthy is usually larger and they don’t have the resources to remain healthy and have to commit crimes like theft to get these resources in order to improve their fitness.
Additionally, the highest rates of homicide involve a male offender and a male victim. This is the young male syndrome idea; trying to gain social status and assert dominance. This is an mating adaptation from evolution but it is no longer adaptive due to the development of social rules.
Discuss the evolution of spite
The evolution of spite can be explained via negative relatedness (aka Hamiltonian spite); this argues that people act in a way that’s costly to both themselves and the recipient as they are less related to them than the average population. rB > C : if relatedness was -1 then relatedness times benefit is still lower than the costs; therefore it is better to act in a costly manner. This could provide evidence for racism for example. There can also be social relatedness so it can be applied to religion and football supporters. This could be argued to be a type of group selection.
Discuss evolution and laws
Laws have evolved because of the development of our morals. For example, we would allow the death of 1 person if it saved 4. However, we wouldn’t do it if we had to commit the murder ourselves. This evolved from the judging actions rather than inactions. In this case, actions elicit an emotional response. There is evidence of a module for this. We judge what someone does not what they don’t do.
Discuss evolution and art
This follows the savanna hypothesis; we have a preference for art that looks green, has mountains and rivers aka the savanna as this is where we left great apes who remained in forests. We have a preference for it as we evolved there. Parks are designed around this - large areas with a few trees. Some argue that this could be a cultural effect, however, it’s a universal preference.
We also enjoys the arts, e.g. TV as it’s like a ‘mental cheesecake’; a world where all of our wishes/fears come true. It’s a method of escaping one’s current environment. Research has shown that there are 7 basic plot points that mainly relate to fitness; predators (overcoming a monster), competition (rags to riches), comedy (mate choice - language is a sexually selected trait), exploration (voyages) and so on. In terms of language, it extends from the Swiss Army knife metaphor and argues that language is a diamond encrusted knife - it has the same function as a fashioned stick but it’s meanings extend far beyond the utility for survival. However, evolutionary psychologists can fall in the trap of applying adaptation to everything even though it could just be a by-product. Evidence for this - the female orgasm could just be a by-product of evolution but people argue that it has evolved because of the upsuck hypothesis and because it improves pair bonding. Additionally, we kiss because it feels good - lips are very sensitive but evolutionary psychologists argue that it’s an adaptation to protect us from cytomegalovirus; if you kiss the same person that has it for up to 6 months then you develop a resistance to it as it’s transferred in small doses. This is beneficial because if a pregnant female isn’t resistant then their baby can develop birth defects.
Discuss Wander’s study
They explored Darwinian medicine in terms of iron deficiency. It was found that iron deficiency has fitness benefits as it restricts the iron availability to pathogens, thus preventing them from succeeding in the body.
Discuss Bottino’s study
Expanding on what was mentioned earlier; infanticide is more common among younger mothers, Bottino found similar things. They found that rates of postpartum depression were significantly higher among younger parents. As parents’ reproductive potential reduces so do rates of postpartum depression.
Discuss Krupp’s study
They found evidence for negative relatedness. The participants rated the attractiveness and trustworthiness of people’s faces. Some of the faces were negative self resembling faces to the participants; these reported lower attractiveness and less trustworthiness. This shows that we are sensitive to negative relatedness.
Discuss Zaidel’s study
They explored why art evolved. It is argued that evolved as a courtship behaviour; it began as body ornaments to show wealth and resources which then developed into external ornamentation.
Discuss Benzon’s argument
They argued that literature and fictional books have evolved from oral storytelling as speech was present way before written communication. A good story is one that relates to people’s lives in some manner.
Oral storytelling would be on closer encounters than a nationally release book and being a good story teller could be an adaptive trait as it could improve social bonds, thus improving status in the group and the likelihood of reciprocal altruism.
