Chapter 1. Evolutionary Psychology and Sex Differences

Short Description

While using the principle of natural selection to explain human behavior, does evolutionary psychology imply that our actions are predetermined? More importantly, does this perspective deny moral responsibility? In this clip, evolutionary scientists seek to address that important question.

Long Description

Steven Pinker notes that, although men and women are overwhelmingly similar in most mental traits, they differ in sexuality. Helena Cronin adds that the different environmental challenges faced by the sexes have contributed to significant differences in psychological makeup. Some feminists fear that highlighting gender differences may promote inequality. Cronin states that science seeks only to describe, not prescribe, reality. Morality prescribes how we ought to live. Thus, in describing men as more promiscuous than women, evolutionary theory is not sanctioning such male behavior. Pinker rejects the notion that explanations of behavior get “people off the hook.” The fact that people have desires, and that scientists have explanations for those desires, does not mean that people must act on those desires. In fact, in his own life, Pinker has chosen not to act on the most fundamental evolutionary urge, namely, the desire to have children. People make many decisions that do not carry out the dictates of evolution. Pinker describes his personal choice as “telling his genes to go jump in the lake.” Richard Dawkins concludes that one can be a scientist who understands human nature, including the reality of selfish genes. At the same time, one can acknowledge that we have a brain (it, too, a product of natural selection) that enables us to do the unexpected, namely, to tell our genes to go jump in the lake.

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