Evolutionary Thinking

Hamad David Houle made an appeal to the importance of the consequent variation for any evolutionary thinking. I didn t deny that. What I said was that in a particular case of variation, namely, current individual differences in traits, my points about the relevance of that current variation to the understanding of the trait itself are not a reflection of the importance or non-importance of ancestral variation in evolution. 

Evolutionary thinking is impossible when variation is ignored it was Darwin s genius to show that linking inherited variation to a struggle for existence leads to natural selection. Ospovat (1981) has pointed out the pre-1859 assumption of a perfect adaptation of organisms to their environment led to a... 

There is no reason to think that the other kind of hypothetical module, the kind exemplified by the rape module that directs different responses to different situations, will be any less susceptible to developmental variation than quasi-deterministic modules such as the homosexuality module. Plus, for that matter, there is no particular reason to suppose that there will be less initial genetic variability in cases such as the rape module. So perhaps the perspectives of evolutionary psychology and behavioural genetics should not be seen as fundamentally disparate. 

Robert Richards. So when you have those traits, which do not seem to have any purchase on success and reproduction, then I think you re perfectly right to be very sceptical about that, but take some other kinds of traits, something that is almost as ambiguous as rape. Because rape occurs under a lot of different conditions and in some cases you re not quite sure how to evaluate the behaviour and so on. But, as we were talking at coffee, what about maternal attachment Now that s a fairly vague concept as well. It is the kind of response a mother will have for an infant. That attachment, and again, very often vaguely described, but one can focus on particular aspects of it. Let me just ask you - do you think this is ripe for evolutionary analysis So that s the basic question. 

Robert Richards . .. that the immediate contract that the mother had with her child if that is delayed a great deal, the attachment, the kind of what I would think of as an instinctive response of the mother to the child, is proportionately less. So that s something we didn t know before. We do know it now. But all of this. .. even though these are facts one would think of as a very simple sort, they do cry out, or they need an explanation. And it seems to me the evolutionary explanation is straightforward, and I doubt that many people in this room would deny it. 

John Dupre Start with the first question. I m certainly sorry if this is offensive to people. I guess my only defence is that being as it is currently a very widespread discussed claim by evolutionary psychologists. But perhaps one should let that be and not sink to the level that one s opponents may have fallen. And as I said, I m certainly sorry if I ve offended people. I don t really understand the second part of your question. I am reluctant to say there is no normal behaviour because I think there is a kind of bedrock of, for example, the example earlier of the mothers taking care of their... 

Robert Richards Not again to jump on John too much, so I ll jump on Steve Rose simultaneously. Are there any traits, either simple behavioural traits, responses that human beings exhibit on a behavioural level, that you would think are adequately accounted for in evolutionary terms ... 

Robert Richards This is just a simple question about - are there behaviours, not drive-by shootings in Los Angeles, but simple behaviours that human beings exhibit, that seem to be most perspicuously analysed by giving an evolutionary adaptable account And this won t be the account. And not only that - any evolutionary account, I think we all agree about this, is going to take into perspective the environment, because evolution, we presume, does count on certain constant environments in order to exhibit the kinds of effects that it can select. 

---