Can We Escape Our Biological Heritage Analysis

Throughout this essay I will be defending the idea that we cannot escape our biological heritage through the argument from Evolutionary Psychology. I will also present and critique conflicting ideas of our human nature through the idea Standard Social Science Model (SSSM). To begin this paper I will firstly break down what is meant by the question ‘can we escape our biological heritage?’ as well as mention the importance of the answer to this question and explain what is meant by the ‘Theory of Human Nature’.
More simply, the question of ‘can we escape our biological heritage?’ is asking whether or not there is more to human nature than our biology. The answer to such a question has significant impacts for our life. If humans are nothing more
Just like all other living things evolved and adapted, and just like the rest of the human body and evolved, our “psychological mechanisms are evolved adaptations” therefore there is nothing ‘immaterial’ about human nature and we are therefore completely subject to the biological heritage of our evolution (Tooby & Cosmides, 2005, p. 9).
Evolutionary Psychology is replacing the traditional views of psychology and the standard social science model of the mind. This traditional view believes that we can escape our heritage due to the fact that the content of our social and mental lives is not determined by our biological heritage. The main claims of the SSSM view are:
• The mind is tabula rasa, a blank
There would be no reason for our minds to evolve to experience mental illness, yet we experience it. If the brain also contains complex modules to help us survive, surely there should be a module with would help prevent us suffering from mental illness as this would greatly help our survival, however we do not. Therefore, by these reasoning, the argument from Evolutionary Psychology that our mind is a combination of complex modules that developed by evolution but at least be partly false. These critics who are supporters of SSSM may say that its idea of development due to socialisation explains why we experience mental illness. It is often said that glorification of thinness, the high standards of beauty and the social pressures exerted on us by media is the reason we develop mental illnesses like eating disorders. Because our brain develops purely by what it is exposed to and has no specific modules to deal with these pressures, it makes sense that humans experience high levels of mental health