Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T01:38:18.209Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Technological selection: A missing link

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2012

Peter B. Crabb
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University Hazleton, Hazleton, PA 18202. [email protected]

Abstract

Vaesen's description of uniquely human tool-related cognitive abilities rings true but would be enhanced by an account of how those abilities would have evolved. I suggest that a process of technological selection operated on the cognitive architecture of ancestral hominids because they, unlike other tool-using species, depended on tools for their survival.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Crabb, P. B. (2000) The material culture of homicidal fantasies. Aggressive Behavior 26:225–34.3.0.CO;2-R>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crabb, P. B. (2005) The material culture of suicidal fantasies. Journal of Psychology 139:211–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crabb, P. B. & Elizaga, A. (2008) The adaptive value of tool-aided defense against wild animal attacks. Aggressive Behavior 34:633–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Darwin, C. (1871) The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. John Murray.Google Scholar
Gruber, A. (1969) A functional definition of primate tool-making. Man 4:573–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, D. & Sussman, R. W. (2005) Man the hunted: Primates, predators, and human evolution. Westview Press.Google Scholar
Kenrick, D. T. & Sheets, V. (1993) Homicidal fantasies. Ethology and Sociobiology 14:231–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laland, K. N., Odling-Smee, J. & Feldman, M. W. (2000) Niche construction, biological evolution, and cultural change. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (1):131–46. doi: doi:10.1017/S0140525X00002417.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Richerson, P. & Boyd, R. (2005) Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Washburn, S. L. (1959) Speculations on the interrelations of the history of tools and biological evolution. Human Biology 31:2131.Google ScholarPubMed