The Socialist Dream Crumbles in Venezuela

[Spider]

[exploited]

Well put.

Taking a shit, seeking shelter during a storm, wanting to have sex, being able to speak a language... these are low-level adaptations.

The problem is when you apply it to high-level behaviours. It becomes an untenable mess at that point.

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dharma Bum]

[Spider]

By that logic, would you say that greed is human nature then? Since it so clearly confers a selection advantage?

[eynon81]

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dharma Bum]

[exploited]

What about the environment has changed in the last twenty years that can account for an 80% drop in rapes?

The lack of genetic change disproves the idea that rape is a genetic adaptation, because if it was, you'd be able to point out what genes have changed, and there would be a noticeable difference between a rapists brain and a non-rapist brain... a theory that has long ago been abandoned, because it just isn't true.

Not only that, but the typical rapist has access to consensual sex, rendering any advantage to such an adaptation irrelevant, since he increases his chances of being imprisoned, killed or ocstracized while failing to increase his chance of reproductive success. And it is reproductive success that is required for a behaviour to be adapted.

Taken with the fact that rape has more disadvantages than advantages, by a factor of 10:1, this adaptation would have been bred out long ago.

The point is, you can either argue that rape is an evolutionary adaptation, which would require a genetic change to account for the drop, or you can argue that people have decided not to rape others, which disproves the idea that rape is the result of adaptation and people who do it are simply following biological imperatives.

Obviously human beings can choose whether or not to follow biological imperatives. We can choose to starve to death, to be celibate, etc. And so the question becomes: what use is evolutionary psychology? It doesn't increase our understanding of human behaviour at all. The only possible use it has is to understand low-level functions that aren't influenced by dozens of other factors.

[Homer]