Sherlock Cumberbatch on Evolutionary Psychology 13 Jan 201214 Jan 2012 As always, click on the image to go see the entire Jonathon Rosenberg goodness Evolution Humor
Evolution Another claim for priority from New Zealand 3 May 200818 Sep 2017 One of the enduring patterns of the history of the history of evolution is for historians to claim that their favourite individual, or their country’s best and brightest, invented evolution. The most recent appears to be this guy from New Zealand, claiming that evolution was actually invented by an artist,… Read More
Biology Evopsychopathy 1. Conditions for sociobiology 6 Dec 201218 Sep 2017 Well I better put up or shut up, I guess. Here are my ruminations, excretions, and expressions regarding evolutionary psychology, or, as we might call it, evopsychopathy. I am, as I have said, a born again sociobiologist, so I guess that makes me an evopychopath. Let’s get a few things… Read More
Amusing, but it shows that Holmes doesn’t understand the difference between evolutionary altruism and psychological altruism. All Watson said was ‘maybe he was *feeling* generous’, and there’s no reason that natural selection couldn’t produce tendencies to have generous feelings as long as, on the whole, those feelings led to behaviour that turned out to benefit the individual in the long run in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. Plus, Holmes has ignored the possibility of altruistic tendencies arising as a by-product. So there was nothing wrong with what Watson said. So there.
You are of course correct (and that’s the way I taught it around 2002), but the error is Sherlock’s not mine 🙂 However, this is an error of equivocation that is often committed by those who propound the evolutionary psychological approach. Like your textbook, by the way. I have recommended it to a number of students.
Thanks for your kind remarks about my book. Of course, I wasn’t blaming you for the error in the cartoon!