Week 4 Post 1

Pinker lecture

Steven Pinker believes that evolution is important in understanding human behavior because he thinks that it is important for people to know why they act the way that they do. For example, if we are not friendly to a person of the same sex, that could have been adapted a long time ago for reproductive purposes. It could be that we are defensive against people of the same sex because it was essential for passing our genes on in the previous years. He says that many of these types of traits are inbred in our system because they were selected for in an evolutionary process through natural selection.

However, he does not believe that everything has been subjected to natural selection. He says that a common misconception about his field of study is that because some things have been selected for, people think that all things have been selected for. That the way we think and the way that we act are only the results of natural selection. It is often times how this particular type of philosophy gets a bad name. It is important to realize that is not what he is saying, only that some traits have been selected for.