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Evolutionary psychology

Post 1

Matematik

Care to reveal any cases where it has been applied successfully? Have you read any good books where it's applied?

I ask because this is a subject for which enthusiasm is not shared by many, unfortunately.

SENSE AND NONSENSE. EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
by LALAND K & BROWN G

The book above is one which should be good. It should be delivered to me in a week or two, so I haven't read it yet, but I can't wait.smiley - smiley

I'm currently reading Religion explained by pascal boyer. It's good.


Evolutionary psychology

Post 2

Rat, who can't remember his way round this bloody thing.

The thing about evolutionary phsychology is its new and not very good. Sure, Darwin hinted at it a couple of centuries ago, but its only the last five years or so people have started to actually use it.

It's a fact that we've undergone three hundred and fifty thousand million years of evolution and its a fact that our brains have been a part of it so it doesn't take a genius to realise that our brains are part of that evolution and have to be examined as such...

Anything I've found on evolutionary psychology has been more 'this is what we should be looking for' rather than 'this is what we've found' to date, but I'd reccomend Steven Pinkers 'How The Mind Works' or 'The Blank Slate' as a starting point. The closest thing I've found to its application is Susan Blackmores 'Dying To Live' (about NDEs and the dying brain hypothosis) but even she only seems to touch it in passing.

It has got a long way to go before its accepted, but its halfway there...it's not as popular as the meme, but would appear to be the only other place we're going to find a different solution to the problem of language

There was a really important thing I was going to say just before the last paragraph but I can't remember what it was (maybe forgetting things like that will one day be explained by evolutionary psychology!) but if I do remember, I'll post it later smiley - erm

smiley - angel


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