Psych 141, Evolution and Human Nature: Tentative Schedule, Winter 2016
Web page: http://pages.ucsd.edu/~dmacleod/141/psychology141.html
Some Presentations:
KatherineCoopChildRearing .ppt
KellyInfidelity and evolution.pptx
Discussion points and questions are here.
CALENDAR
Tuesday Jan 5
Organizational issues, distribution of syllabus.
Thursday Jan 7
General Introduction: Who are we? Where did we come from?
Wright, Introduction
Tuesday Jan 12
Wright, Introduction and Chapters 1-2 (pages 1-54); please email me possible discussion questions by midnight on Monday, to dmacleod@ucsd.edu, with Psych 141 in the subject line, and a page reference to the relevant passage where appropriate.
Thursday Jan 14
Rough Timeline of human evolution
Gender Roles: Wright, Chapter 3 (pages 55-92)
Presentation: Kayla Sheldon, Antisocial Personality Disorder
Jan 19
Marriage: Wright, Chapters 4-6 (pages 93-154, esp. 93-107)
Presentations:
(1)
(2)
Jan 21
TBA (Don out of town)
Jan 26
Families and friends: Wright, Chapters 7-9 (pages 155-209)
Presentations:
(1)
(2)
Jan 28
Darwin and Social Status: Wright, Chapters 10-12 (pages 210-262)
Presentations:
(1)
(2)
Feb 2
Self-Deception: Wright, Chapters 13-14 (pages 263-310)
Presentations:
(1)
(2)
Feb 4
Evolutionary Ethics: Wright, Chapters 15-16 (pages 313-344)
Presentations:
(1)
(2)
Feb 9
Determinism and Responsibility: Wright, Chapters 17-18 (pages 345-379; concludes Wright)
Presentations:
(1)
(2)
Feb 11
Workman and Reader Chapter 1: Introduction to Evolutionary Psychology
Workman and Reader Chapter 2: Mechanisms of Evolutionary Change
Presentations:
(1)
(2)
Feb 16
Workman and Reader Chapter 3: Sexual Selection
Presentations:
(1)
(2)
Feb 23
Workman and Reader Chapter 4: Human Mate Choice
Workman and Reader Chapters 5 and 6 Cognitive Development in an Evolutionary Perspective
Presentations:
(1)
(2)
Feb 25:
Workman and Reader Chapter 7: Kin relationships as a source of altruism
Workman and Reader Chapter 8: Reciprocity as a source of altruism
Presentations:
(1)
(2)
PAPER DUE
March 1
Workman and Reader Chapter 9: Evolution and cognition
Workman and Reader Chapter 10: Evolution of Language
Presentations:
(1)
(2)
March 3
Workman and Reader Chapter 11: Evolution of Emotion
Workman and Reader Chapter 12: Evolutionary Psychiatry
Presentations:
(1)
(2)
March 8
Workman and Reader Chapter 13: Evolutionary Psychology and Culture
Presentations:
(1)
(2)
March 10
Critiques of Evolutionary Psychology; Review
Read any 2 of the 4 critiques listed below (Kitcher; Tallis; Coyne; Malik)
In-Class Presentations: 1 or 2 daily, TBA after people sign up.
Following is a list of recommended readings by topic, which will be updated during the quarter. These are recommended (generally not required) for everyone. They are also suitable as part of the basis for a class presentation. A few readings from the set below may be selected as required reading in preparation for a particular day’s discussion; these will be announced later.
(NOTE: The links that follow mostly require a UC proxy server and ID, see Overview handout for this class)
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Cognition and Language:
Ecological
dominance, social competition, and coalitionary
arms races: Why humans evolved extraordinary intelligence The Cartwright and Barrett chapters below are also recommended (I have a couple of copies): Brain size and language: Cartwright, Evolution and Human Behavior, Chs 6,7 (pages 157-210); excerpts from Barrett et al., Chapter 7. Evolutionary perspectives on perception and cognition: How our world view is shaped by statistics of the environment 1. Environments That Make Us Smart: Ecological Rationality Peter M. Todd and Gerd Gigerenzer Current Directions in Psychological Science, Volume 16, Issue 3, Page 167-171, Jun 2007 Search Journal at Publisher's Site 2. Purves D, Lotto RB, Williams SM, Nundy S, Yang Z.Why we see things the way we do: evidence for a wholly empirical strategy of vision.Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2001 Mar 29;356(1407):285-97.
3. The interface theory of perception (Hoffman): |
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Sexual selection: attractiveness These readings revert to the topic of August 11, but give more depth from recent research 1. Facial attractiveness Randy Thornhill and Steven W. Gangestad Trends in Cognitive Sciences–Vol.3,No.12,May1999,,452-460 2. Putting beauty back in
the eye of the beholder 3. C Wedekind, T Seebeck, F Bettens, AJ Paepke Proceedings: Biological Sciences, 1995 260(1359):245-9 4. DeBruine LM. Trustworthy but not lust-worthy: context-specific effects of facial resemblance. Proc Biol Sci. 2005 May 7;272(1566):919-22. 5 Sexual selection for moral virtues. Miller, G. F. (2007). Quarterly Review of Biology, 2000, vol 82 issue 2, 97-125. 6. The evolution of human mating: trade-offs and strategic pluralism. Gangestad, S W and Simpson, J., Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2000 vol:23 iss:4 pg:573 -87; discussion 587-- This is a paper, intended to provoke debate among expert commentators, that suggests that sexual selection involves tradeoffs between various desiderata, with some expected strategic variation in the weights that individuals will attach to the different criteria.
Also Recommended: Miller, The Mating Mind (book summary)
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Evolutionary Psychiatry (Nesse, Barrett et al Ch.9)
1. Randolph M. Nesse Natural selection and the elusiveness of happiness Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B (2004), 1333-1347
2. Andrew Shaner, Geoffrey Miller, Jim Mintza Schizophrenia as one extreme of a sexually selected fitness indicator Schizophrenia Research 70 (2003) 101–109
3. The Optimum Level of Well-Being: Can People Be Too Happy? By: Oishi, Shigehiro; Diener, Ed; Lucas, Richard E.. Perspectives on Psychological Science, Nov2007, Vol. 2 Issue 4, p346-360 |
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The Capacity for Culture
Joseph Henrich, Natalie Henrich: Culture, evolution and the puzzle of human cooperation Cognitive Systems Research 7 (2006) 220–245
Tomasello, M. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1999, vol. 28:509-29 The human adaptation for culture
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Some critiques of evolutionary psychology
1. Philip Kitcher, The Transformation of Human Sociobiology. PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Vol. 1986, Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers. (1986), pp. 63-74.
2. Raymond Tallis offers in his piece “Darwin without Darwinitis” a balanced and amusing critique of the sometimes excessive pretentions of evolutionary psychology: http://www.thegreatdebate.org.uk/DarwinDarwinitis.html
3. Coyne, J. A. 2000. Of Vice and Men. (Review of the A Natural History of Rape, by R. Thornhill and C. Palmer and a general discussion of evolutionary psychology). The New Republic, April3, 2000, pp. 27-34.
4. Kenan Malik on the “Fallacies of evolutionary psychology”: http://www.kenanmalik.com/essays/fallacy.html
Also recommended: Sharon Begley Evolutionary Psych May Not Help Explain Our Behavior After All (Review of Adapted Minds, by David Buller) Wall Street Journal, April29, 2005 http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/files/wall_street_journal_review.pdf
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War
1. Overconfidence in war games: experimental evidence on expectations, aggression, gender and testosterone. - Johnson DD et.al.
2. Intergroup atrocities in war: a neuroscientific perspective. - Taylor KE
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Family conflict
1. Evolutionary social psychology and family homicide Daly, M. and Wilson,
M.
2. Temrin H, BuchMayer S, Enquist M. Proc Biol Sci. 2000; vol 267, pp:943-5. Step-parents and infanticide: new data contradict evolutionary predictions.
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Sustainability: Greed vs. Foresight 1.Richard Dawkins Sustainability doesn’t come naturally: a Darwinian Perspective on Values Download |
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Disease, fertility and lifespan 1. Rudi G. J. Westendorp and Thomas B. L. Kirkwood Human longevity at the cost of reproductive success. Nature,1998, vol 396, 743-746
2. Evolutionary Theories of Aging and Longevity Leonid A. Gavrilov* and Natalia S. Gavrilova TheScientificWorldJOURNAL (2002) 2, 339–356
Also recommended: Linda Partridge Of worms, mice & men: altering rates of aging Daedalus; Winter 2006; 135, 40-47
Also recommended: Eric Le Bourg and Suresh I. S. Rattan Can dietary restriction increase longevity in all species, particularly in human beings? Introduction to a debate among experts Biogerontology (2006) 7: 123–125
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The comparative perspective on cooperation Alicia P. Melis, Brian Hare, Michael Tomasello Chimpanzees Recruit the Best Collaborators Science. 2006 Mar 3;311(5765):1297-30
Jessica C. Flack and Frans B.M. de Waal ‘Any Animal Whatever’: Darwinian Building Blocks of Morality in Monkeys and Apes Journal of Consciousness Studies, 7, No. 1–2, 2000, pp. 1–29
Sarah F. Brosnan & Frans B. M. de Waal Monkeys reject unequal pay Nature, 2003, vol 425 , 297-299 |