Nice 10 minute video on evolutionary psychology from two leading researchers. I particularly like how they make some connections to economics and a modern market economy, how humans are not hard-wired for an impersonal society.



This is something the economist F.A. Hayek often talked about -- people want to try to design society as if we were still in small tribes. It can't be done, if you expect to have a modern standard of living.

Thanks for leading the discussion. I'll buy the book and should have it through soon.

Cool, I hope people are not intimidated by the book/discussion. It should be interesting, and it's a fairly short read.

Reposting book link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/185168 ... 1851683569

Hi Dexter, looks like a really interesting book. Thanks for posting the interview.

There are a couple of points in it that made me wonder.

1. They accuse modern psychology of applying Locke's 'blank slate' idea of the human mind and ignoring how our intuitions are shaped by evolution. This is true for some schools of psychology, but psychoanalysis explicitly argues that instinct is driven by unconscious motives with deep roots in evolution. Freud, Jung and other psychoanalysts seem to have fallen from favor in academic psychology. Perhaps it is because they addressed these big picture questions of the irrationality of impulse?

2. The emphasis on using evolutionary psychology to explain political economy is valuable. The argument is that socialism emerges from an irrational desire to make an industrial society operate like a primitive tribe, and we see the failure of the socialist experiment in models like North Korea and East Germany. As you (Dexter) alluded, this is a key theme for Hayek, for example in his book The Constitution of Liberty, where the flawed assumptions of 'common sense' are shown to depart markedly from optimal policies, which require rigorous disinterested logic.

Robert and Dexter, you might be interested in this:

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/cont ... nimals.pdf

It's only an excerpt but offers a nice little explanation of Linbergen's Four Whys.

Thanks Dexter. Am downloading it now before net or electric fail again. Am so relieved I can just click on a word on my Kindle and get the dictionary definition

Robert Tulip wrote:Hi Dexter, looks like a really interesting book. Thanks for posting the interview.

There are a couple of points in it that made me wonder.

1. They accuse modern psychology of applying Locke's 'blank slate' idea of the human mind and ignoring how our intuitions are shaped by evolution. This is true for some schools of psychology, but psychoanalysis explicitly argues that instinct is driven by unconscious motives with deep roots in evolution. Freud, Jung and other psychoanalysts seem to have fallen from favor in academic psychology. Perhaps it is because they addressed these big picture questions of the irrationality of impulse?

I'm not that familiar with psychoanalysis, I would guess their analysis of instinct is not really informed by serious evolutionary biology

And I would also guess that many psychologists would agree the brain is not a blank slate, they just don't account much for evolution in their explanations. They might argue there is plenty to do without focusing on evolutionary explanations.

I think it would be fascinating going back to the beginnings of both psychoanalysis and evolutionary biology.....I have to look this up, but I'm thinking both came about fairly close to each other (ev.bio at the end of the 19th century? and psychoanalysis the beginning of the 20?). Next time, I'll look up the dates and THEN post. Sorry.

This promises to be a very interesting read and discussion. Some years ago I spent time immersed in an area of psychology variously called sociocultural or sociohistorical theory. It was a refreshing change from the behaviourist approach of so many of my instructors during my university days. What appealed to me about this approach was its emphasis on the importance of sociocultural forces in shaping the situation of a child’s development and learning and points to the crucial role played by parents, teachers, peers, and the community in defining the types of interaction occurring between children and their environments.
In chapter 4 of “Evolutionary Psychology”, the authors describe how, “human children develop via a dialectical process between their inherent genetic endowment and the environment (culture) in which they grow up.
I'm now wondering if there are sources that link, or at least show some overlapping of these two approaches in the area of child development.

I watched a TED talk that is relevant to the topic.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt ... _mind.html

He talks about the moral values that we have evolved, and relates it to the different viewpoints of liberals and conservatives.