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The Modern Scholar: Evolutionary Psychology, Part II: The Science of Human Nature
"Why do we do what we do?" In this thought-provoking series of lectures, Allen D. MacNeill examines the surprising - and sometimes unsettling - answers to this most basic of human questions. The remarkable new field of evolutionary psychology takes a scientific approach to the evolution of human nature. Analyzing human behavior in relation to food, clothing, shelter, health care, and sex, Evolutionary Psychology proves an immensely stimulating exploration of human endeavor.
8 pages, Audible Audio
First published September 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 21, 2016
This review is for Part 1 and 2 of this series of lectures.
My enthusiasm with Evolutionary Psychology started shorty after I understood what the theory of evolution really means. I have since read several books that tackle this topic, but none of them were as comprehensive as this one. To be able to understand this book and appreciate the importance of its topic, you must first have a strong grasp about natural selection and how it works; the book explains this shortly, but this is not its main focus. I recommend The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution and Why Evolution Is True for a strong understanding of evolution and why it is not only the Greatest Show on Earth, but also The Only Game in Town.
In this series of 24 lectures, Allen D. MacNeill of Cornell University attempts (and succeeds in my opinion) to give a comprehensible view of what this new field of Evolutionary Psychology. He asks broad and wide questions such as "Why do we do X from an evolutionary point of view?", "Does Y gives us an evolutionary advantage? and how?". The answers to these questions are sound and make a lot of sense. One is left wondering how come there are people who question these findings just because some of them are a bit unsettling?
The lectures contain many points tackled by books I read earlier such as Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, E. O. Wilson's On Human Nature, Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design and Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel : The Fates of Human Societies. All of which I thoroughly enjoyed, learnt a great deal from and therefore highly recommend to anyone interested in questions regarding the Human Nature. These lectures however give a more comprehensive overview of the field including topics I've never read on before. So what are these topics?
In total the lectures are about 15 hours long, which is equivalent to a 500 to 600-page book. The lectures begin with identifying the science of Evolutionary Psychology and how it reaches its findings. The main idea here as I understand it is that if we accept that heritable traits such as length, speed, claws, camouflage and others give evolutionary advantage, then why not accept that heritable behaviors also give evolutionary advantage? The first example given by the author is very easy to understand and is indisputable: (breast) suckling. Babies who suckle (a behavior) have a very clear advantage over those who don't. He does not leave it here; he adds that this behavior which is selected by natural selection can misfire and lead to other behaviors that share the same neurological circuits such as thumbsucking which infers no evolutionary advantage and therefore is not selected by natural selection. In a way, thumbsucking rides on the back of the selected trait.
The author is very keen to put forth the "is-ought problem" before moving any further in the lectures. He emphasizes the importance of differentiating between "what is" and "what ought to be". The first is the job of science, and it has nothing to do with the latter, even if some scientists in the past or present have confused the two of them. The confusion of these two leads to the naturalistic fallacy. Here's a good definition of that problem by Steven Pinker:
After a short historical background, the author explains how evolution works, he goes then to demonstrate that there is no real "nature vs nurture" debate and that both factors play roles in human and animal behavior. The investigation of human behavior follows a similar methodology as in ethology (the study of animal behavior). The author does not shy away from stating the material/naturalistic nature of science.
The next lectures deal extensively with the topics of altruism, sex, rape, war, religion, crime, aesthetics and how they can infer an evolutionary advantage. He cites many books, studies, papers and mentions several differing points of view on these topics. He is also critical of the "standard view of the social sciences", especially social psychology and anthropology that all human behavior is learnt by culture. In the final lectures he deals with the philosophical implications of evolutionary psychology on topics such as intelligent design and freewill.
Overall the series is smooth and easy to understand and I highly recommend it.
My enthusiasm with Evolutionary Psychology started shorty after I understood what the theory of evolution really means. I have since read several books that tackle this topic, but none of them were as comprehensive as this one. To be able to understand this book and appreciate the importance of its topic, you must first have a strong grasp about natural selection and how it works; the book explains this shortly, but this is not its main focus. I recommend The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution and Why Evolution Is True for a strong understanding of evolution and why it is not only the Greatest Show on Earth, but also The Only Game in Town.
In this series of 24 lectures, Allen D. MacNeill of Cornell University attempts (and succeeds in my opinion) to give a comprehensible view of what this new field of Evolutionary Psychology. He asks broad and wide questions such as "Why do we do X from an evolutionary point of view?", "Does Y gives us an evolutionary advantage? and how?". The answers to these questions are sound and make a lot of sense. One is left wondering how come there are people who question these findings just because some of them are a bit unsettling?
The lectures contain many points tackled by books I read earlier such as Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, E. O. Wilson's On Human Nature, Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design and Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel : The Fates of Human Societies. All of which I thoroughly enjoyed, learnt a great deal from and therefore highly recommend to anyone interested in questions regarding the Human Nature. These lectures however give a more comprehensive overview of the field including topics I've never read on before. So what are these topics?
In total the lectures are about 15 hours long, which is equivalent to a 500 to 600-page book. The lectures begin with identifying the science of Evolutionary Psychology and how it reaches its findings. The main idea here as I understand it is that if we accept that heritable traits such as length, speed, claws, camouflage and others give evolutionary advantage, then why not accept that heritable behaviors also give evolutionary advantage? The first example given by the author is very easy to understand and is indisputable: (breast) suckling. Babies who suckle (a behavior) have a very clear advantage over those who don't. He does not leave it here; he adds that this behavior which is selected by natural selection can misfire and lead to other behaviors that share the same neurological circuits such as thumbsucking which infers no evolutionary advantage and therefore is not selected by natural selection. In a way, thumbsucking rides on the back of the selected trait.
The author is very keen to put forth the "is-ought problem" before moving any further in the lectures. He emphasizes the importance of differentiating between "what is" and "what ought to be". The first is the job of science, and it has nothing to do with the latter, even if some scientists in the past or present have confused the two of them. The confusion of these two leads to the naturalistic fallacy. Here's a good definition of that problem by Steven Pinker:
The naturalistic fallacy is the idea that what is found in nature is good. It was the basis for social Darwinism, the belief that helping the poor and sick would get in the way of evolution, which depends on the survival of the fittest. Today, biologists denounce the naturalistic fallacy because they want to describe the natural world honestly, without people deriving morals about how we ought to behave (as in: If birds and beasts engage in adultery, infanticide, cannibalism, it must be OK).The author returns to emphasize this point several times in the series, especially when tackling the more controversial topics such as sex, rape and war.
After a short historical background, the author explains how evolution works, he goes then to demonstrate that there is no real "nature vs nurture" debate and that both factors play roles in human and animal behavior. The investigation of human behavior follows a similar methodology as in ethology (the study of animal behavior). The author does not shy away from stating the material/naturalistic nature of science.
The next lectures deal extensively with the topics of altruism, sex, rape, war, religion, crime, aesthetics and how they can infer an evolutionary advantage. He cites many books, studies, papers and mentions several differing points of view on these topics. He is also critical of the "standard view of the social sciences", especially social psychology and anthropology that all human behavior is learnt by culture. In the final lectures he deals with the philosophical implications of evolutionary psychology on topics such as intelligent design and freewill.
Overall the series is smooth and easy to understand and I highly recommend it.
June 4, 2021
Very worthwhile the time it took to complete this two part course.
Lots of research in the field is condensed through the lense of a witty lecturer with a beautiful scottish accent.
Very powerfull stuff putting human nature in its evolutionary context(But you knew that already looking at the title).
Just one thing:
Can't we just kick the term "free will"?
It is excruchiating hearing all these people arguing against free will without ever defining it.
Assuming a connotation as the end all meaning.
I recognize it is a not perfect term. I freely will myself to fly in my room but it still does not happen. Yet, asserting that the only true and scientific position is, that we can do without a concept of self ownership is nothing I buy into.
At the moment anyway.
And even if it is "only" because neuroscience still does not fully understand the feedback/feedforeward mechanisms at play and our experience feels somewhat autonomous.
Relative autonomy is the term I want to see established.
Physical determinism, yes, but don't just stand there and assume, we understand the physics of reality on every level. As a matter of fact, even physicist don't get either the biophysics of consciousness or quantum physics sufficiently.
Lots of research in the field is condensed through the lense of a witty lecturer with a beautiful scottish accent.
Very powerfull stuff putting human nature in its evolutionary context(But you knew that already looking at the title).
Just one thing:
Can't we just kick the term "free will"?
It is excruchiating hearing all these people arguing against free will without ever defining it.
Assuming a connotation as the end all meaning.
I recognize it is a not perfect term. I freely will myself to fly in my room but it still does not happen. Yet, asserting that the only true and scientific position is, that we can do without a concept of self ownership is nothing I buy into.
At the moment anyway.
And even if it is "only" because neuroscience still does not fully understand the feedback/feedforeward mechanisms at play and our experience feels somewhat autonomous.
Relative autonomy is the term I want to see established.
Physical determinism, yes, but don't just stand there and assume, we understand the physics of reality on every level. As a matter of fact, even physicist don't get either the biophysics of consciousness or quantum physics sufficiently.
November 12, 2019
Professor Allen D. MacNeill presents the second series of lectures about the evolution of mankind in the title Evolutionary Psychology, Part II: The Science of Human Nature. An overarching question that is explored is what makes people leaders and what makes others followers. Also explored are the topics of dominance and territoriality, the neurobiology of religion, the connection between religion and war, adaptive pathologies and evolutionary aesthetics. Each lecture is information dense and may take more than one listening session to capture all the information. The course booklet and lecture syllabus is helpful in condensing the ideas explored in the lectures.
February 21, 2022
The book provides a quite realistic picture of how the mind works. It could have been shorter and the last chapters are more like philosophical thoughts - I skipped them. I like the textbook by David Buss more but this one has audiobook format which I prefer.
September 16, 2018
See note for EP I.
Read
January 4, 2023Part 2 was a little more rough than part one. The most interesting part was the bit about depression and autism, which was a small fraction of the lectures.
August 5, 2015
I have read many books on this topic and was glad to read (audio) this lecture series that ties so many things I regularly read about into a coherent subject and heading. I love how the lecturer explains "is-ness" vs. "ought-ness". Just because humans have evolved with a lot of behavior that is morally "wrong" to our modern sensibilities, does not mean that is the way things "ought" to be. I listened to part 2 directly after and will be posting this review for that as well.
July 11, 2013
I listened to most of this twice because it was so revolutionary to me. And yet... it makes so much sense. The human condition is revealed. Nice how he addresses issues like religion, rape, war, aesthetics and free will. I'm inspired to learn more... especially from MacNeill. He's very well organized and makes a difficult subject interesting.
April 20, 2015
"We have tangled wings, but that does not mean we can't take a fly."
Melvin Konner
...That was a wonderful reading! It takes time, valor and knowledge to design a quality review. I might leave it blank with the best recommendations!
Melvin Konner
...That was a wonderful reading! It takes time, valor and knowledge to design a quality review. I might leave it blank with the best recommendations!
February 4, 2014
If you loved part one of this series, you're going to love part two too.
May 21, 2015
A bit more about sex than I was interested in.
March 5, 2016
it was good
March 23, 2016
Dugo nesto gore nisam procitala.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews