Darwin's Natural Selection
How Natural Selection has Shaped the Modern Mind
Abstract
Mental and emotional faculties have been widely accepted as complex, useful, and non-arbitrary pieces of the human mind. If these faculties are actually nonrandom parts of our development they must have come from either divine design or natural selection. While there are those that believe that people are created in some divine being’s image, many recognize that Darwin’s theory of natural selection has shaped many aspects of the modern mind. This paper will also explore the theories of assortative mating and sexual selection, and how Darwin’s natural selection disproves the blank slate theory and the Noble Savage.
How Natural Selection has Shaped the Modern Mind
The …show more content…
The assortative mating theory describes the idea that two individuals might end up together because of having similar characteristics and in fact selected each other on the basis of having similar characteristics (Brockman, 2011). This relates to Darwin’s natural selection theory because if people are choosing to mate because of similar character traits those traits will be passed down to their children and may help that child continue to mate with similar minded persons. This assortative mating encourages the passing on of certain genes based on the mates similarities. Of course attraction depends on much more than just a few common characteristics. This is where the idea of sexual selection comes into play. Darwin was the first to talk about the idea of female choice in sexual selection. This is the idea that the females of a species choose their mates based on all kinds of traits, not just physical attractiveness. In fact, many of the traits that are weighed when selecting a mate are not arbitrary, instead they are powerful indicators of things that matter in reproduction such as fertility, health and even psychologically attractive traits like kindness. When we weigh these qualities of a potential mate, we are insuring that we have a partner that is able to get along in the social and physical world, and a partner we can successfully raise children with, and pass on above average genes. It turns out the two most desired traits are kindness and intelligence. These traits are also the major characteristics that distinguish us from primates (Brockman, 2011). But the evolution that has developed from sexual selection includes more than just character traits, it may also be evidence for why we developed language and music. While language has many useful functions, we may have developed such a vast vocabulary to impress potential mates. Courtship almost always includes
Abstract
Mental and emotional faculties have been widely accepted as complex, useful, and non-arbitrary pieces of the human mind. If these faculties are actually nonrandom parts of our development they must have come from either divine design or natural selection. While there are those that believe that people are created in some divine being’s image, many recognize that Darwin’s theory of natural selection has shaped many aspects of the modern mind. This paper will also explore the theories of assortative mating and sexual selection, and how Darwin’s natural selection disproves the blank slate theory and the Noble Savage.
How Natural Selection has Shaped the Modern Mind
The …show more content…
The assortative mating theory describes the idea that two individuals might end up together because of having similar characteristics and in fact selected each other on the basis of having similar characteristics (Brockman, 2011). This relates to Darwin’s natural selection theory because if people are choosing to mate because of similar character traits those traits will be passed down to their children and may help that child continue to mate with similar minded persons. This assortative mating encourages the passing on of certain genes based on the mates similarities. Of course attraction depends on much more than just a few common characteristics. This is where the idea of sexual selection comes into play. Darwin was the first to talk about the idea of female choice in sexual selection. This is the idea that the females of a species choose their mates based on all kinds of traits, not just physical attractiveness. In fact, many of the traits that are weighed when selecting a mate are not arbitrary, instead they are powerful indicators of things that matter in reproduction such as fertility, health and even psychologically attractive traits like kindness. When we weigh these qualities of a potential mate, we are insuring that we have a partner that is able to get along in the social and physical world, and a partner we can successfully raise children with, and pass on above average genes. It turns out the two most desired traits are kindness and intelligence. These traits are also the major characteristics that distinguish us from primates (Brockman, 2011). But the evolution that has developed from sexual selection includes more than just character traits, it may also be evidence for why we developed language and music. While language has many useful functions, we may have developed such a vast vocabulary to impress potential mates. Courtship almost always includes