The red-beard evolutionary explanation of human sociality

Recent evolutionary studies on cooperation devote specific attention to non-verbal expressions of emotions. In this paper, I examine Robert Frank’s popular attempt to explain emotions, non-verbal markers and social behaviours. Following this line of work, I focus on the green-beard explanation of social behaviours. In response to the criticisms raised against this controversial ultimate explanation, based on resources found in Frank’s work, I propose an alternative red-beard explanation of human sociality. The red-beard explanation explains the emergence and evolution of emotions, a proximate cause, rather than patterns of behaviour. In contrast to simple evolutionary models that invoke a green-beard mechanism, I demonstrate that the red-beard explanation can be evolutionary stable. Social emotions are a common cause of a social behaviour and a phenotypic marker and therefore cooperative behaviour cannot be suppressed without also changing the marker.

Is Country-Level Extraversion Associated with the Number of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths?

An evolutionary explanation of between-country variation in extraversion assumes that it is more adaptive in the absence of pathogens but less adaptive in pathogen-prevalent environments. We attempted to test this assumption by correlating country-level extraversion scores and the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. There are at least five country-level extraversion scores available, three of which were significantly correlated with the number of COVID-19 cases and two of which were significantly correlated with the number of COVID-19 deaths. This apparent partial support for the assumption is puzzling because the validity of country-level extraversion scores was low. Brief numerical simulations suggest that a statistical artefact due to combining two mutually non-independent subgroups (European/American countries and African/Asian countries) may account for the observed country-level correlations.

The Evolution of Suffering, Epiphenomenalism, and the Phenomena of Life: Evidential Problems for Naturalists

Paul Draper argues that the central issue in the debate over the problem of suffering is not whether the theist can offer a probable explanation of suffering, but whether theism or naturalism can give a better explanation for the facts regarding the distribution of pain as we find them. He likewise maintains a comparison of relative probabilities considering the facts of suffering; atheological naturalism is to be preferred. This essay proceeds in two phases: (a) It will be argued that mainstream positions in naturalistic philosophy of mind make it difficult to take pain as anything but epiphenomenal and therefore not subject to evolutionary explanation. While the distribution of suffering is a difficulty for the theist, the naturalist has equal difficulty explaining the fact that there is any suffering at all in the first place. Thus, the facts of suffering offer no advantage to the atheist. (b) Phenomenologists suggest that there is an intrinsic connection between animal life, pain, and normativity (including a summum bonum). The mere occurrence of life and normativity are, at least prima facie, more likely on the assumption of theism than atheism, so the theist may have a probabilistic advantage relative to the atheist. Phases (a) and (b) together support the overall conclusion that the facts of pain as we find them in the world (including that there is any pain at all) are at least as great, if not greater, a challenge for the atheist as they are the theist.

The rhetorical use of B. F. Skinner in evolutionary psychology

This article examines Skinner’s often neglected ideas about evolution, which he returns to in his final academic paper. I attempt to square Skinner’s advocacy for evolutionary explanation, including his efforts to reconcile biological, individual, and cultural adaptation, with how he is framed and critiqued by a school of evolutionary psychologists who attribute to Skinner a blank slate, or so-called standard social science model, view of the mind. I argue that characterizing Skinner in this manner is inconsistent with his evolutionary writings and ignores Skinner’s explicit disavowals of such interpretations. I then discuss Skinner’s evolutionary views in light of contemporary evolutionary theories of human psychology. I also compare the reception to evolutionary psychology and Skinner within the field more generally and conclude by discussing the proposal that evolutionary psychology should be considered a new paradigm for psychology, a claim that seems to follow from evolutionary psychologists’ caricature of Skinner.

Revisión del conflicto entre los humanos y las serpientes en México: origen, mitigación y perspectivas

Review of the human–snake conflict in Mexico: origin, mitigation and perspectives. The conflict between humans and snakes has existed since unmemorable times. Fear of and aversion towards these animals may have an evolutionary explanation and may be justified because venomous and deadly snakes cause thousands of deaths around the world each year. Furthermore, social perception, the media, myths, and even religion, increase and feed this fear, resulting in the intentional slaughter of snakes being a common practice in many places. As Mexico is a mega–diverse country with more species of snakes than any other country, it faces a particularly difficult situation with regard to snake bites. Here we revise this human–snake conflict from different perspectives in order to better understand it, to propose possible solutions to reduce it, and to contribute towards snake conservation.

Evolutionary explanations for religion: An interdisciplinary critical review

Some form of religion exists in every documented society on earth. However, ‘religion’ is a multifaceted phenomenon commonly including aspects, such as rituals, myths, rules and regulations concerning ethical behaviour, social practices and some form of belief in the supernatural (e.g. gods, spirits or souls). Due to its pervasiveness, many researchers of biological and cultural evolution have suggested that religion needs a universal evolutionary explanation. However, most proposed explanations have either treated religion as a single all-encompassing entity or only focused on a single or a few aspects of religion. We propose, instead, to carry out an extensive review of such suggested evolutionary explanations with the express aim of pairing up proposed explanations with religious components in order to form a more comprehensive depiction of causation and how religion and human cognition both have evolved, each influenced by the other. We also propose to summarise predictions and hypotheses that spring from each explanation, with the express aim of stating how each may be evaluated and tested. Crucially, different aspects of religion may have different explanations and different explanations may apply to several aspects of religion. Proposed explanations will be summarised in a series of thematically oriented scientific articles, as well as in a summary monograph. Our dual competencies, in evolutionary theory and religious studies, provide us with a unique opportunity to evaluate these issues from both a natural and a humanistic point of view.

Is Wilson’s religion Durkheim’s, or Hobbes’s Leviathan?

This paper critically supports the modern evolutionary explanation of religion popularised by David Sloan Wilson, by comparing it with those of his predecessors, namely Emile Durkheim and Thomas Hobbes, and to some biological examples which seem analogous to religions as kinds of superorganisms in their own right. The aim of the paper is to draw out a theoretical pedigree in philosophy and sociology that is reflected down the lines of various other evolutionarily minded contributors on the subject of religion. The general theme is of evolved large-scale cooperative structures. A scholarly concern is as follows: Wilson (Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, And The Nature Of Society, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2002) draws on Durkheim, (The elementary forms of religious life. Free Press, New york, 1912) using Calvinism as an example without mentioning Hobbes (Leviathan, Edited by E. Curley, Cambridge, Hackett, 1651), but it was Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) who used Calvinism as an example of a leviathanesque religious structure—which is not acknowledged by either Wilson or Durkheim. If there are even any similarities between these authors, there appears to be an omission somewhere which should rightly be accounted for by giving credit to Hobbes where it is due. I issue on conclusion, what it is that makes Wilson’s approach radically different to that it skates on. I also issue it with a cautionary word.

An Evolutionary Explanation for Change in Religious Institutions

Many attempts have been made to explain the rise of religious phenomena based on evolutionary models, which attempt to account for the way in which religion can constitute a useful system to increase the fitness of both the individual and the group. These models implicitly mean that beliefs are simply effective adaptations to the environment and in this sense they cannot be truly accepted by those who adhere to the religions in question. In this paper, I use the evolution of culture model elaborated by Cavalli Sforza to propose an approach that can explain the change of institutionalized religions over a more limited time frame than the long times of biological evolution. This model could be heuristically effective in the study of religious phenomena and could also be applicable in terms of theology and philosophy of religion. Given the limits of space, I will only try to take a few steps in this direction, trying to answer some of the major questions that arise about such an approach. In particular, one may ask whether, unlike others, the evolution of culture model applied to religions can make it possible to put into brackets - or to remain agnostic about - the value and the truth of the beliefs and precepts of the religion which is studied.

Psychological Aposematism: An Evolutionary Analysis of Suicide

The evolutionary advantage of psychological phenomena can be gleaned by comparing them with physical traits that have proven adaptive in other organisms. The present article provides a novel evolutionary explanation of suicide in humans by comparing it with aposematism in insects. Aposematic insects are brightly colored, making them conspicuous to predators. However, such insects are equipped with toxins that cause a noxious reaction when eaten. Thus, the death of a few insects conditions predators to avoid other insects of similar coloration. Analogously, human suicides may increase the credibility of future suicide threats and attempts from others, conveying an evolutionary advantage to the phenotypic expression of suicidal behavior in low-fitness contexts.