The Evolution of Mind Fundamental Questions and Controversies

by Gangestad, Steven W.; Simpson, Jeffry A.

• ISBN13: 9781593854089
• ISBN10: 1593854080
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-01-26
• Publisher: The Guilford Press

Summary

In the past two decades, an explosion of research has generated many compelling insights--as well as hotly debated controversies--about the evolutionary bases of human nature. This important volume brings together leading proponents of different theoretical and methodological perspectives to provide a balanced look at 12 key questions at the core of the field today. In 43 concise, accessible chapters, followed by an integrative conclusion, the contributors present viewpoints informed by human behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, and gene-culture coevolutionary approaches. Topics include the strengths and limitations of different methodologies; metatheoretical issues; and debates concerning the evolution of the human brain, intellectual abilities, culture, and sexual behavior.

Author Biography

Steven W. Gangestad, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of New Mexico. His research has covered a variety of topics in evolutionary behavioral science, including the determinants of sexual attraction, changes in women's sexual psychology across the ovarian cycle, the effects of genetic compatibility between mates on relationship qualities, individual variation in developmental precision and its manifestations in neuropsychology, and influences of men's testosterone levels.
 
Jeffry A. Simpson, PhD, is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Doctoral Minor in Interpersonal Relationships at the University of Minnesota. His research interests include adult attachment processes, human mating, idealization in relationships, empathic accuracy in relationships, and dyadic social influence. Dr. Simpson is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. He serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes.

Table of Contents

An Introduction to The Evolution of Mind: Why We Developed This Book	p. 1
Methodological Issues: The Means of Darwinian Behavioral Science	p. 23
How the Evolution of the Human Mind Might Be Reconstructed
Comprehensive Knowledge of Human Evolutionary History Requires Both Adaptationism and Phylogenetics	p. 31
Natural Psychology: The Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness and the Structure of Cognition	p. 38
Reconstructing the Evolution of the Mind Is Depressingly Difficult	p. 45
Reconstructing the Evolution of the Human Mind	p. 53
How the Evolution of the Human Mind Might Be Reconstructed	p. 60
The Role of Tracking Current Evolution
Reproductive Success: Then and Now	p. 69
On the Utility, Not the Necessity, of Tracking Current Fitness	p. 78
Why Measuring Reproductive Success in Current Populations Is Valuable: Moving Forward by Going Backward	p. 86
Our Closest Ancestors
What Nonhuman Primates Can and Can't Teach Us about the Evolution of Mind	p. 97
Who Lived in the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness?	p. 103
Chimpanzee and Human Intelligence: Life History, Diet, and the Mind	p. 111
The Role of Examining the Costs and Benefits of Behaviors
Optimality Approaches and Evolutionary Psychology: A Call for Synthesis	p. 121
The Games People Play	p. 130
Dynamical Evolutionary Psychology and Mathematical Modeling: Quantifying the Implications of Qualitative Biases	p. 137
Fundamental Metatheoretical Issues	p. 145
The Modularity of Mind
Functional Specialization and the Adaptationist Program	p. 153
Modules in the Flesh	p. 161
Development as the Target of Evolution
The Developmental Dynamics of Adaptation	p. 171
An Alternative Evolutionary Psychology?	p. 178
Development as the Target of Evolution: A Computational Approach to Developmental Systems	p. 186
Evolutionary Psychology and Developmental Systems Theory	p. 193
The Importance of Developmental Biology to Evolutionary Biology and Vice Versa	p. 203
The Role of Group Selection
The Role of Group Selection in Human Psychological Evolution	p. 213
Group Selection: A Tale of Two Controversies	p. 221
On Detecting the Footprints of Multilevel Selection in Humans	p. 226
Debates Concerning Important Human Evolutionary Outcomes	p. 233
Key Changes in the Evolution of Human Psychology
The Hominid Entry into the Cognitive Niche	p. 241
Runaway Social Selection in Human Evolution	p. 249
Key Changes in the Evolution of Human Psychology	p. 256
Brain Evolution
Brain Evolution and the Human Adaptive Complex: An Ecological and Social Theory	p. 269
Evolution of the Social Brain	p. 280
Brain Evolution	p. 287
E Pluribus Unum: Too Many Unique Human Capacities and Too Many Theories	p. 294
General Intellectual Ability
The Motivation to Control and the Evolution of General Intelligence	p. 305
The g-Culture Coevolution	p. 313
General Intellectual Ability	p. 319
Culture and Evolution
Cultural Adaptation and Maladaptation: Of Kayaks and Commissars	p. 327
The Envelope of Human Cultures and the Promise of Integrated Behavioral Sciences	p. 332
The Linked Red Queens of Human Cognition, Coalitions,and Culture	p. 339
Evolutionary Biology, Cognitive Adaptations, and Human Culture	p. 348
Representational Epidemiology: Skepticism and Gullibility	p. 357
Turning Garbage into Gold: Evolutionary Universals and Cross-Cultural Differences	p. 363
The Evolution of Mating between the Sexes
The Evolution of Human Mating Strategies: Consequences for Conflict and Cooperation	p. 375
Social Structural Origins of Sex Differences in Human Mating	p. 383
The Evolution of Women's Estrus, Extended Sexuality, and Concealed Ovulation, and Their Implications for Human Sexuality Research	p. 391
Whither Science of the Evolution of Mind?	p. 397
Index	p. 439
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