Evolutionary Blog #2
Once a cheater, always a cheater?
Is there any validity to the claim of “once a cheater, always a cheater”? While it may be unfounded, I tend to assume that those who make that claim are likely to make similar claims such as, “once an addict, always an addict”, “people don’t change”, or that it is best to “trust nobody”. In my view, this type of outlook is highly misanthropic, cynical, and unhealthy.
There are two circumstances in which I often hear this made. First, as a warning to someone who is considering continuing a relationship with someone who has cheated. This is usually well intentioned advice, however, since many relationships successfully sustain affairs, its questionable whether it is beneficial advice. Secondly, …show more content…
Women attending Fresno State will have difficulty finding partners because there are simply not enough men at the school to go around, and young men who are not attending college may have difficulty finding partners –despite a more equal sex-ratio– because their earning potential is lower.
If I am correct that it is women among college students, and men among non-students, who complain most about the dating market, it would be a reflection of intersexual competition. Surely if sex-ratio influences intersexual competition it must influence Intrasexual competition as well. If so, I would predict that women attending Fresno State would be more likely to “slut shame” other women than those who are not attending State, and that men who are not attending Fresno State would be more prone to physical aggression than those who are.
Learning vs. …show more content…
It seems that a species that had “hard-coded” instincts for child-rearing would be more adaptive than one that had to learn to raise children. Reliance on learning introduces the potential for parents to learn poor parenting techniques, or worse, none at all. Perhaps the most unique and impressive feature of humans as a species is our vast array of complex cultural adaptations. Culture, and the spread of learned behaviors from one to another, allows humans to adapt to changing environments at a far quicker pace than evolution can facilitate. This is the primary argument for why humans do not express instinctual behavior; because it is rigid, whereas learned behaviors are flexible. Individuals that expressed rigid instinctual behaviors in environments that they were ill-suited for were overtaken by the individuals that instead relied on acquired behaviors. This is logical explanation for why most human behavior is learned. However, I have difficulty imagining an environment where a modal action pattern for feeding one’s baby would not be beneficial. While it’s not a particularly difficult skill to master, I cannot comprehend how the “passing-down” of such a basic skill would be better accomplished through culture rather than
Once a cheater, always a cheater?
Is there any validity to the claim of “once a cheater, always a cheater”? While it may be unfounded, I tend to assume that those who make that claim are likely to make similar claims such as, “once an addict, always an addict”, “people don’t change”, or that it is best to “trust nobody”. In my view, this type of outlook is highly misanthropic, cynical, and unhealthy.
There are two circumstances in which I often hear this made. First, as a warning to someone who is considering continuing a relationship with someone who has cheated. This is usually well intentioned advice, however, since many relationships successfully sustain affairs, its questionable whether it is beneficial advice. Secondly, …show more content…
Women attending Fresno State will have difficulty finding partners because there are simply not enough men at the school to go around, and young men who are not attending college may have difficulty finding partners –despite a more equal sex-ratio– because their earning potential is lower.
If I am correct that it is women among college students, and men among non-students, who complain most about the dating market, it would be a reflection of intersexual competition. Surely if sex-ratio influences intersexual competition it must influence Intrasexual competition as well. If so, I would predict that women attending Fresno State would be more likely to “slut shame” other women than those who are not attending State, and that men who are not attending Fresno State would be more prone to physical aggression than those who are.
Learning vs. …show more content…
It seems that a species that had “hard-coded” instincts for child-rearing would be more adaptive than one that had to learn to raise children. Reliance on learning introduces the potential for parents to learn poor parenting techniques, or worse, none at all. Perhaps the most unique and impressive feature of humans as a species is our vast array of complex cultural adaptations. Culture, and the spread of learned behaviors from one to another, allows humans to adapt to changing environments at a far quicker pace than evolution can facilitate. This is the primary argument for why humans do not express instinctual behavior; because it is rigid, whereas learned behaviors are flexible. Individuals that expressed rigid instinctual behaviors in environments that they were ill-suited for were overtaken by the individuals that instead relied on acquired behaviors. This is logical explanation for why most human behavior is learned. However, I have difficulty imagining an environment where a modal action pattern for feeding one’s baby would not be beneficial. While it’s not a particularly difficult skill to master, I cannot comprehend how the “passing-down” of such a basic skill would be better accomplished through culture rather than