Chapter 13: - Evolution and Human Behavior

Summary

Although largely accepted in animal biology, sociobiology has proven to be a controversial model for explaining human behavior. Nowadays sometimes termed ‘behavioral ecology’, the application of biological models to human behavior has the potential to explain a wide array of human instincts and actions. This chapter reviews the models for such putative human universals as violence, sexual reproduction strategies, coalition-building, and altruism, and compares them with similar models applied to animals. It also emphasizes that environment and culture provides critical influences on the ultimate expression of behavior: for example, across societies, mate preferences are partially mediated by society’s economic opportunities, so that culture can act as a buffer for underlying biological instincts. Since this topic is controversial, the chapter review the historical antecedents, starting with Plato’s theory of universals, through John Locke’s Enlightenment ideal, the ‘tabula rasa’, to Margaret Mead and Napoleon Chagnon in modern anthropology. Much of this debate has an underlying moral element, so the chapter discusses the naturalistic fallacy and point out the fact that our morality need not be determined in any way by potential evolutionary influences on instincts or behaviors. However, it also notes the potential logical pitfalls of treating humans as ‘special case’ animals.