SWT
Sweet Taste Preference
Class: I - Natural Selection
EPA Total Score: 31 /100
Symons, D. (1995). On the use and misuse of Darwinism in the study of human behavior. In J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, 137-62. New York: Oxford University Press.
Abstract: Although researchers have long been aware that the species-typical architecture of the human mind is the product of our evolutionary history, it has only been in the last three decades that advances in such fields as evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, and paleoanthropology have made the fact of our evolution illuminating. Converging findings from a variety of disciplines are leading to the emergence of a fundamentally new view of the human mind, and with it a new framework for the behavioral and social sciences. First, with the advent of the cognitive revolution, human nature can finally be defined precisely as the set of universal, species-typical information-processing programs that operate beneath the surface of expressed cultural variability. Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors--problems such as mate selection, language acquisition, cooperation, and sexual infidelity. Consequently, the traditional view of the mind as a general-purpose computer, tabula rasa, or passive recipient of culture is being replaced by the view that the mind resembles an intricate network of functionally specialized computers, each of which imposes contentful structure on human mental organization and culture. The Adapted Mind explores this new approach--evolutionary psychology--and its implications for a new view of culture.
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Supporting Evidence
43/100
Submitted by DJGlass
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Psychological evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Medical evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Physiological evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Cross-Cultural evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Genetic evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Phylogenetic evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Hunter-Gatherer evidence for this EPA.
Supporting Evidence is evidence that suggests that this trait is an Evolved Psychological Adaptation (EPA) - i.e., that it has been shaped by natural selection to solve a particular adaptive problem.
Challenging Evidence
0/100
Submitted by DJGlass
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Psychological evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Medical evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Physiological evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Cross-Cultural evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Genetic evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Phylogenetic evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Hunter-Gatherer evidence for this EPA.
Challenging Evidence is evidence that suggests that this trait is not an EPA - e.g., that it is a product of cultural learning or genetic drift, or maybe it does not exist at all. However over each line of evidence for a description.