Heroism is apparently nonadaptive in Darwinian terms, so why does it exist at all? Risk-taking and heroic behavior are predominantly male tendencies, and literature and legend reflect this. This study explores the possibility that heroism persists in many human cultures owing to a female preference for risk-prone rather than risk-averse males as sexual partners, and it suggests that such a preference may be exploited as a male mating strategy. It also attempts to quantify the relative influences of altruism and bravery (...) in the evolution of heroism. Our study found that females do prefer risk-prone brave males to risk-averse non-brave males, and that men are aware of this preference. Bravery in a male was shown to be the stronger factor influencing female choice of short-term partners, long-term partners, and male friends, with altruism playing a lesser part in their choice. Altruism was deemed important in long-term relationships and friendships, but for short-term liaisons, non-altruists were preferred to altruists. Heroism may therefore have evolved owing to a female preference for brave, risk-prone males because risk-taking acts as an honest cue for "good genes." Altruism was judged to be a less influential factor in the evolution of heroism than bravery and a demonstrated willingness to take risks. (shrink)

An enormous intellectual adventure. In this groundbreaking new book, the American biologist Edward O. Wilson, considered to be one of the world's greatest living scientists, argues for the fundamental unity of all knowledge and the need to search for consilience --the proof that everything in our world is organized in terms of a small number of fundamental natural laws that comprise the principles underlying every branch of learning. Professor Wilson, the pioneer of sociobiology and biodiversity, now once again breaks out (...) of the conventions of current thinking. He shows how and why our explosive rise in intellectual mastery of the truths of our universe has its roots in the ancient Greek concept of an intrinsic orderliness that governs our cosmos and the human species--a vision that found its apogee in the Age of Enlightenment, then gradually was lost in the increasing fragmentation and specialization of knowledge in the last two centuries. Drawing on the physical sciences and biology, anthropology, psychology, religion, philosophy, and the arts, Professor Wilson shows why the goals of the original Enlightenment are surging back to life, why they are reappearing on the very frontiers of science and humanistic scholarship, and how they are beginning to sketch themselves as the blueprint of our world as it most profoundly, elegantly, and excitingly is. (shrink)

During human evolutionary history, there were “trade-offs” between expending time and energy on child-rearing and mating, so both men and women evolved conditional mating strategies guided by cues signaling the circumstances. Many short-term matings might be successful for some men; others might try to find and keep a single mate, investing their effort in rearing her offspring. Recent evidence suggests that men with features signaling genetic benefits to offspring should be preferred by women as short-term mates, but there are trade-offs (...) between a mate's genetic fitness and his willingness to help in child-rearing. It is these circumstances and the cues that signal them that underlie the variation in short- and long-term mating strategies between and within the sexes. Key Words: conditional strategies; evolutionary psychology; fluctuating asymmetry; mating; reproductive strategies; sexual selection. (shrink)

A provocative assessment of human thought and behavior, reissued with a new afterword, explores a range of conundrums from the ability of the mind to perceive three dimensions to the nature of consciousness, in an account that draws on ...

Presupposing that all knowledge is the study of a unitary order of nature, the author maintains that the study of literature should be included within the larger field of evolutionary theory. He outlines four elementary concepts in evolutionary theory, and he argues that these concepts should regulate our understanding of literature. On the basis of these concepts, he repudiates the antirealist and irrationalist views that, under the aegis of “poststructuralism,” have dominated academic literary studies for the past two decades. He (...) examines the linkage between poststructuralism and standard social science, and he speculates about the ideological and disciplinary motives that have hitherto impeded evolutionary study in both the social sciences and the humanities. Finally, he distinguishes literature from science and argues that literary criticism integrates elements of both. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 296-311 [Access article in PDF] Byron As Cad Ian Jobling I AS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT and intriguing poets of the romantic period, Byron has been the subject of much recent critical commentary. However, no matter how excellent some of this scholarship is, the reader who is familiar with evolutionary psychology, the science that has tried to explain the biological underpinnings of human (...) nature, inevitably comes away from it with a feeling of dissatisfaction. In spite of the obvious relevance of biological theories of human behavior to the most basic issues of literary interpretation, only a handful of literary critics, and no Byron critics, have attempted to use these theories to understand the creation and reception of literary texts. All literary criticism relies on assumptions about human nature; because most critics are unfamiliar with evolutionary psychology, these assumptions are almost never clarified and justified. By familiarizing themselves with evolutionary psychology, literary critics can replace their vague, commonsensical, and often empirically unsupported assumptions about human nature with more precise and empirically valid theories.Much recent research on the evolution of sexuality has focused on "cad" and "dad" mating strategies in men. Cads seek to maximize their reproductive success by maximizing the number of their sexual partners and by avoiding parental investment; dads are committed to long-term, monogamous relationships with women and make substantial parental investment in their children. The personality traits of cads—aggressiveness, rebelliousness, criminality, and sexual promiscuity—bear a close resemblance both to Byron's own personality traits and to those of the Byronic hero. Understanding the cad mating strategy [End Page 296] enables us to better understand Byron's personality as well as the conflicts between his personality and the culture of his time that shaped his literary production and reception. II Evolutionary psychology uses the principles of evolutionary biology as a guide to the study of human cognition and behavior. The types of psychological traits that will succeed evolutionarily are those that maximize an organism's ability to transmit its genes to the next generation, or what evolutionary psychologists call its "fitness," by successfully reproducing and by helping kin who share its genes to reproduce. Our psychological design did not evolve in the environment that we now inhabit but on the African savannah of the Pleistocene era; therefore, evolved human psychology is best understood not in relation to the lifestyle of the citizens of modern nation-states, but to that of hunter-gatherers. 1Recent research on human sexuality has suggested that humans have evolved to pursue two different types of mating strategies: short-term and long-term. On the one hand, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that, unlike most mammals, humans are designed for long-term sexual relationships with substantial male parental investment in children. Human infants require a great deal of parental care, and children reared in father-absent households suffer much higher mortality rates than those who are reared in father-present households, especially in preindustrial societies. 2 The sexual psychology of women also indicates that human sexuality has been shaped by long-term sexual relationships. A number of studies both in the United States and across cultures have shown that women regularly report being attracted to men who are socially respected, financially well-off, ambitious, industrious, dependable, emotionally stable, and romantic, 3 all qualities that indicate the ability and willingness to sustain long-term, parentally investing relationships with women.However, there are also aspects of both men's and women's sexuality that show that we did not evolve exclusively to pursue long-term mating. The evidence for the importance of short-term mating in human evolution is most obvious in men, who consistently show a marked desire for sexual variety. For example, in a survey, male college students said that they would, on average, like to have six partners in the coming year, and men fantasize about having sex with multiple partners (Buss, [End Page 297] ED, pp. 76-83). The fitness advantage of short-term sexual relationships to men is obvious: men can have more offspring the... (shrink)