An Introduction to Evolutionary Psychology

When learning about a new concept or discipline, it is highly relevant to be more conscious of the implied notions, which are often used in the discipline.

Therefore, you will be presented with a walk-through of the following:

• How the human mind is perceived through the logic of Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory

• Proximate versus ultimate questions, and which disciplines utilizes which

• Examples of ultimate vs proximate questions

• The initial fundamental thoughts of Evolutionary Psychology, and how it perceives of human behavior

So, before we jump into how today's Evolutionary Psychology is conceptualized, I will guide you through the chronological development of Evolutionary Psychology and how it ended up being an established academic discipline.

Therefore, in this lecture, we will touch upon relevant the relevant precursor:

• Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and his theory of "Acquired Inheritance". Lamarck served as a great theoretical inspiration for Charles Darwin's development of evolution and natural selection.

• Examples of how Lamarck's theory was in fact faulty, but none the less initiated Darwin's evolutionary thinking

When talking about Evolutionary Psychology, it is inevitable to use a larger amount of time going through Charles Darwin's road to the conceptualization of evolution by natural selection. Therefore, we will walk through the very process of how Darwin went to the Galapagos with a quite different initial investigative focus, and how he eventually came to the theorizing of natural selection and evolution.

The lecture consists of:

• The sea expedition with HMS Beagle in 1835 to the Galapagos Islands

• Charles Darwin's observations on the finch, and why those were important

• Charles Darwin's work - The Origin Of Species

• Natural selection and it's two components:

  • Heritable variation

  • Differential reproductive success

• A modern study utilizing evolutionary theory thus combining the presented theoretical ideas

• The reproduction of sexual versus asexual species (mutations)

A large part of modern Evolutionary Psychology rests on important theoretical contributions from genetics. Therefore, we cannot proceed to talk about Evolution and Evolutionary Psychology before grasping the basics of genetics, and how genetics was discovered.

Gregor Mendel is considered to be the "father" of modern genetics and is also the founder of the paradigm called "Mendelism" - a mathematical approach to genetics.

This lecture will thus be about Mendel, his experiments on pea plants, and a thorough walk-through of basic genetics:

• Historical information about Gregor Mendel

• A walk-through of Gregor Mendel's experiments of pea plants, which laid a foundation of understanding genetics

• A walk-through of exemplified mathematical genetics, homozygotes, heterozygotes and alleles

• A differentiation of dominant and recessive alleles

So, how did we eventually go from Darwin's observation on the finches to understanding human behavior in a psychological way through the scope of evolution? This lecture will present the ideas which served to unfold Evolution to not be restricted to explaining how physical features evolved - but also how psychological features evolve.

The lecture will touch upon:

• How Charles Darwin conceptualized the human mind in more mechanical terms

• Examples of how emotion, behavior and psychological aspects evolved due to their adaptive features

Nearing us the modern conceptualization of Evolutionary Psychology, admittedly, Francis Galton is considered a key person.

Francis Calton - Charles Darwin's cousin - was greatly inspired by Darwin, and thus utilized his ideas and incorporated them into his own agendas.

Galton wished to utilize Darwin's idea to benefit society and thus developed tests, which today are considered some of the world's first intelligence tests. Galton is thus considered the father of the Psychometrics paradigm, which also played a part in Eugenics, which is based on ideas stemming from Charles Darwin. The Eugenics movement served as an important movement in ruling out what pitfalls Evolutionary Psychology as a future academic discipline should avoid.

This lecture will include:

• Historical information about Francis Galton and his ideas inspired by Charles Darwin

• Basic information about psychometrics

• The development of the Eugenics movement, and its beliefs and ideologies

This lecture will take you through the process of how Evolutionary Psychology is conceptualized in the 1980s as an established academic discipline. By summarizing what we've been through so far, details of how John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, belonging to the Santa Barbara School of Evolutionary Psychology, provided fundamental principles of Evolutionary Psychology will be explicated.

The lecture will provide you with information about:

• Sociobiology by Edward Osborne Wilson (E. O. Wilson) and how those ideas were very much similar to the ideas that serve as the foundation of modern Evolutionary Psychology

• The five principles of Evolutionary Psychology (Santa Barbara School) and a walk-through of these

  • Cognitive psychology's relevance in those ideas, and how it came to influence the principles of Evolutionary Psychology

• Franz Joseph Gall and Phrenology

• Criticism of the principles of John Tooby and Leda Cosmides by Eric Alden Smith

Being an established academic discipline affords responsibility. Therefore, Evolutionary Psychology has often been met with methodical criticism, which is something we will go through in this lecture.

The lecture will give you insight in:

• Critiques of the word "adaptations", traits as "adaptive" and relevant theories in relation to these concepts

  • A source from Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin from 1979 is presented, which introduces the notion of "Spandrals" covering the nonadaptive traits or evolved features

• Just-so-stories will be presented

• Evolutionary Psychology's methods, methodology, and reflections upon this will be gone through

• You will be presented with elementary reflections on twin- and adoption studies and their relevance in Evolutionary Psychology

• We will discuss comparative methods concerning inter-species comparisons

• Finally, we will discuss how Evolutionary Psychology also uses mathematical and computational modeling in an effort to simulate how traits behave in a given environment

When being perceived as politically incorrect, racist, or supremacist, Evolutionary Psychology often experiences critiques that the discipline has to reflect upon and counterargue.

This lecture will present some of the most heard critiques, and how they could be nuanced in counterclaims from Evolutionary Psychology. This lecture will also function as the "last word" of this course.

Elements went through consist of:

• The misconception that everything in Evolutionary Psychology is an adaptation

• The critique of Evolutionary Psychology being genetically determinant thus entering the pitfalls of genetic determinism

• The critique of Evolutionary Psychology being reductionist

  • We will touch upon good and greedy reductionism presented by Daniel Denett

• Lastly, why Evolutionary Psychology actually is important in relation to the questions it asks

In this extra lecture, I will present information and considerations about the Eugenics Movement, which was founded by Francis Galton.

Eugenics is considered to be paramount to understand in terms of potential pitfalls associated with the academic discipline of Evolutionary Psychology. When we increase knowledge, the surrounding parameters in a given society also develop. Therefore, in this lecture, we will talk about future considerations according to Eugenics' thoughts.

You will be presented with:

• A historical overview of the notion of Eugenics, how it developed, and from where it stemmed

• A real-life example of Eugenics

• The differentiation between Positive and Negative Eugenics

• The Eugenics Movement

• The difference between Francis Galton's and Major Leonard Darwin's conceptualization of Eugenics

• How Eugenics is appearing in historic events