Blog 3

2 Commentsby   |  03.05.13  |  Student Posts

Many questions arise when we discuss questions concerning Evolutionary Psychology. My conservative political, religious, and education background give me all the drive, argument, and desire to completely dismiss this branch of science and psychology. However, I do not want to do that. In fact, I believe Evolutionary Psychology to hold multiple important insights. My question, however, is how far does this go? I would venture to say that most of us are very comfortable with certain ideas surrounding evolutionary psychology. Parental instincts is one possibility. We all pretty universally agree that humans, over time, have developed a more refined way of raising and protecting children. But what about evolutionary psychology’s impact on things like emotions, and how they are produced and expressed. At what point do we say we smile because we are happy and not because we have been biologically and behaviorally conditioned to do so? And while we are asking that question, let’s ask this one “What is happy? Why is that happy?” At what point are we more than tissue and chemicals and nerves? At what point do we become people with souls? At what point do responses cease to be biological and become your personality? How far does this go?

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2 Comments

  1. Katie Clouse
    10:10 pm, 03.05.13

    I am like you in the fact that my background also gives me a drive to dismiss the theory of evolutionary psychology. I liked the point you made that it can help explain somethings, like the way we raise and protect our kids, but it also leaves so many other questions unanswered.

  2. Justin Dugger
    10:38 pm, 03.05.13

    Evolutionary psychology is a interesting topic to discuss. This is especially true for a conservative christian school. This being said there are more and more people agreeing with this thought every day. The theory has some large holes but some very strong, positive arguments. The theory can not explain the small issues, as we discussed in class. Specifically things that apply to a small precent of the population such as homosexuality have week argument. The theory works on standardized behavior. I believe that some of the arguments for evolutionary psychology can not apply to mental disorders. The biggest problem with the theory to me is the lack of individuality. The theory states that we act certain ways based on evolutionary traits to procreate. This takes away from individuality of people. This was a the biggest problem to me. I believe a lot of the principles in the theory are true its just a little invasive.

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