Knowledge Tree
natural selection
Facts (59)
Sources
Evolutionary Psychology | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu 25 facts
procedureFunctional analysis, as proposed by John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, is a six-step procedure for identifying adaptations: (1) use evolutionary considerations to model past adaptive problems, (2) generate hypotheses about how these problems manifested under ancestral selection pressures, (3) formulate a 'computational theory' specifying the information processing problems to be solved, (4) use the computational theory as a heuristic to generate testable hypotheses about the structure of cognitive programs, (5) rule out alternative explanations that do not involve natural selection, and (6) test the adaptationist hypotheses by checking if modern humans possess the postulated cognitive mechanisms.
claimThe task of psychology, within the framework of evolutionary psychology, is to establish that current humans actually possess the cognitive mechanisms that evolutionary theory predicts were shaped by natural selection.
claimCognitive mechanisms produced by natural selection are adaptations for survival in Pleistocene conditions, rather than for modern tasks like playing chess, passing logic exams, navigating large cities, or maintaining weight in an environment with fast food.
claimOne cannot infer 'ought' from 'is' regarding cognitive adaptations because natural selection does not guarantee optimal solutions, ancestral environments differ from current environments, and 'fitness increasing' traits are not necessarily 'morally praiseworthy'.
quoteWilliam Irons stated in 1979 that natural selection has created an extraordinary flexibility known as phenotypic plasticity that allows our behavior to assume the form that maximizes inclusive fitness across a wide variety of widely diverse habitats.
claimNatural selection cannot select for behavior directly because behavior is not transmitted between generations; it can only select for the genes that code for the proximal cognitive mechanisms that produce behavior.
claimRobert Trivers concluded that for altruism to evolve, natural selection must favor more acute abilities to detect cheating, because individuals who accept the benefits of altruism without paying the cost of reciprocation would otherwise drive altruism to extinction.
claimHuman behavior is guided by cognitive mechanisms that were selected for because they produced behavior that was adaptive in the evolutionary environment of our ancestors.
referenceLeda Cosmides published 'The Logic of Social Exchange: Has Natural Selection Shaped how Humans Reason? Studies with the Wason Selection Task' in 1989, which argues that natural selection has shaped human reasoning, particularly in social exchange contexts.
quoteCaro and Borgerhoff Mulder (1987) stated: "it is less easy to sustain claims that a trait is a product of natural selection than claims that it confers reproductive benefits on individuals in contemporary populations."
claimSociobiologists in the 1970s argued that social behaviors are shaped by natural selection and sought adaptationist explanations for cognitive, cultural, and social traits such as altruism, mating preferences, and parent-offspring conflicts.
claimBuss questions whether the result of a 'clueless environment' would be extinction rather than adaptation, challenging the premise that relevant fitness information is unavailable to natural selection.
claimHuman behavioral ecologists utilize the 'phenotypic gambit' strategy, which prioritizes checking whether behavior is adaptive over discovering the proximal cognitive mechanisms that trigger that behavior.
claimAdaptations are traits that persist in the present because they provided a selective advantage in the past environment, which differs significantly from the current environment.
perspectiveLeda Cosmides and John Tooby argued that natural selection did not endow the human mind with a general conditional reasoning capacity because testing abstract logical rules would not have had adaptive value in the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA).
claimEvolutionary psychology defines the human mind as a set of cognitive adaptations, or modules, designed by natural selection to solve recurrent information processing problems that arose in the evolutionary environment of human ancestors.
claimEvolutionary psychologists argue that the human mind is a complex, functionally integrated collection of cognitive mechanisms shaped by evolution through natural selection.
quoteLeda Cosmides and John Tooby stated in 1987: "[t]o speak of natural selection as selecting for ‘behaviors’ is a convenient shorthand, but it is misleading usage. … Natural selection cannot select for behavior per se; it can only select for mechanisms that produce behavior."
referenceLeda Cosmides and John Tooby authored 'Reasoning and Natural Selection,' which was published in the Encyclopedia of Human Biology in 1991.
claimHuman behavioral ecologists argue that natural selection has created phenotypic plasticity, which allows human behavior to maximize inclusive fitness across diverse habitats.
claimEvolutionary psychologists argue that natural selection is a slow process and there have not been enough generations since the Pleistocene for new cognitive mechanisms to evolve that are specifically adapted to post-agricultural industrial life.
claimEvolution by natural selection is the only known natural process capable of producing functional complexity in cognitive mechanisms.
claimLeda Cosmides and John Tooby proposed that natural selection designed a specific module for detecting individuals who accept benefits without reciprocating in social exchange situations.
claimA comprehensive evolutionary approach to culture must investigate how genes influence cultural habits and how culture generates natural selection pressures that guide biological evolution.
claimA trait is defined as an 'adaptation' if it was designed by natural selection to solve specific problems posed by the ancestral environment of a species, whereas a trait is defined as 'adaptive' if it currently enhances the bearer's fitness.
Evolutionary psychology - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 18 facts
claimNatural selection can perpetuate altruism if an altruism gene influences an organism to be helpful and protective of relatives, thereby increasing the proportion of that gene in the population due to common descent.
referenceGeorge C. Williams published 'Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought' in 1966.
claimEvolutionary psychology posits that psychological traits have a genetic foundation and have developed through natural selection, similar to biological organs.
claimThe brain's adaptive mechanisms were shaped by natural and sexual selection.
claimNatural selection favors behavior that maximizes an organism's personal fitness.
claimCognition is functionally structured and has evolved through natural selection because it has a genetic foundation.
claimEvolutionary psychologists assert that natural selection has provided humans with psychological adaptations, similar to how it has generated anatomical and physiological adaptations.
claimCharles Darwin's theories of evolution, adaptation, and natural selection provide insights into the functional reasons for the operations of human minds and brains.
claimW. D. Hamilton proved mathematically in 1964 that because close relatives share identical genes, natural selection can favor organisms that promote the reproduction and survival of related or similar individuals, thereby maximizing their inclusive fitness.
claimEvolutionary psychology has its historical roots in Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.
claimNatural selection has failed to eliminate many harmful conditions and nonadaptive characteristics that manifest in older adults, such as Alzheimer's disease, because these conditions typically appear after the age where evolutionary selection is most active.
claimCharles Darwin argued that human intellect, rationality, sexual behaviour, emotional expressions, moral behaviour, language, culture, and conscience originated due to natural selection operating in social animals through group selection, kin selection, and reciprocal altruism.
perspectiveAdaptationist perspectives suggest that religious beliefs are products of the human brain, with a functional structure that has a genetic foundation and is subject to the effects of natural selection and sexual selection.
claimIn the evolutionary psychology framework, psychological traits and mechanisms are either functional products of natural and sexual selection or non-adaptive by-products of other adaptive traits.
claimNatural selection favors strategies that base the decision to help others on the recipient's reputation, as studies show that more helpful individuals are more likely to receive help.
claimThe central assumption of evolutionary psychology is that the human brain is composed of many specialized mechanisms shaped by natural selection over a vast period of time to solve recurrent information-processing problems faced by ancestors, such as food choices, social hierarchies, resource distribution to offspring, and mate selection.
claimEvolutionary psychology views humans as often being in conflict with others, including mates and relatives, which is consistent with the theory of natural selection.
claimEvolutionary psychologists describe evolved psychological mechanisms as cognitive modules, which are specialized functions shaped by natural selection that focus on specific issues like catching cheaters or choosing mates.
Resolving the evolutionary paradox of consciousness link.springer.com Apr 1, 2024 6 facts
perspectiveWilliam James proposed that the correlations between the valence of sensations and their fitness consequences are explainable by the action of natural selection on efficacious consciousness.
claimAdaptations are defined as features that have arisen through natural selection because they helped organisms survive and pass on their genes by increasing their fitness.
claimUnpleasant sensations are associated with fitness threats, and pleasant sensations with fitness rewards, because individuals learn during development to interpret sensations associated with those threats or rewards as bad or good, rather than because natural selection has harnessed intrinsic causal powers of the sensations.
claimHerbert Spencer and others suggested that the correlation between the valence of sensations and fitness consequences is due to the action of natural selection, which eliminates creatures that find noxious experiences enjoyable.
claimWilliam James argued in 1890 that the alignment between the character and structure of sensations and their ancestral fitness contingencies is adaptive and likely resulted from natural selection.
claimThe author of 'Resolving the evolutionary paradox of consciousness' asserts that none of the existing metaphysical perspectives on consciousness—including physicalism, dualism, and panpsychism—can easily explain the adaptive-seeming correlations between sensations and fitness via natural selection.
The Mechanisms of Psychedelic Visionary Experiences - Frontiers frontiersin.org Sep 27, 2017 2 facts
claimNatural selection favored the over-detection of agency because the cost of false positives is lower than the high costs associated with the failure to detect predators.
claimThe agent-detection function evolved through natural selection in mammals to enhance the capacity for detecting intruders and predators.
Complexity and the Evolution of Consciousness | Biological Theory link.springer.com Sep 14, 2022 2 facts
(DOC) The hard problem of consciousness & the phenomenological ... academia.edu 2 facts
perspectiveThe reviewer compares David Chalmers' book 'The Conscious Mind' to Charles Darwin's 'The Origin of Species', noting that while Chalmers' book makes the problem of consciousness profound, the reviewer doubts Chalmers' positive theory of consciousness will be vindicated like Darwin's theory of natural selection.
accountFollowing the publication of Charles Darwin's work, while the emergence of new species over time was widely accepted, there was little agreement with his hypothesis that natural selection was the mechanism powering that change.
(PDF) Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Diet and Nutrition academia.edu 1 fact
claimLactase persistence serves as a notable example of natural selection in response to dietary practices among human farming populations.
Non-physicalist Theories of Consciousness cambridge.org Dec 20, 2023 1 fact
claimEpiphenomenalism suggests that pain has no causal effects on behavior, implying that switching the correlations between pain/pleasure and physical states would not impact natural selection.
The function(s) of consciousness: an evolutionary perspective frontiersin.org Nov 25, 2024 1 fact
claimThe author posits that the transition from rudimentary consciousness to a consciousness consisting of multiple distinguishable contents likely requires natural selection acting across multiple generations at a population level, making the emergence of such complexity via fortuitous mutations vanishingly small.
The Problem of Hard and Easy Problems cambridge.org Mar 31, 2023 1 fact
claimDavid Chalmers' definition of 'function' is distinct from systemic and evolutionary concepts of function developed in the philosophy of biology, which define functions relative to natural selection mechanisms.