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Evolution is central to the understanding of life, including human life. Like all living things, we are outcomes of natural selection; we got here bec...more

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Sex and excretion are reminders that anyone's claim to round-the-clock dignity is tenuous. The so-called rational animal has a desperate drive to pair...more

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The unstated premise that nature is nice lies behind many of the objections to the Darwinian theory of human sexuality. Carefree sex is natural and go...more

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Some people think that evolutionary psychology claims to have discovered that human nature is selfish and wicked. But they are flattering the research...more

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Many textbooks point out that no animal has evolved wheels and cite the fact as an example of how evolution is often incapable of finding the optimal ...more

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Many people think that the theory of the selfish gene says that “animals try to spread their genes.” That misstates the facts and it misstates the the...more

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Perhaps we should rejoice that people’s emotions aren’t designed for the good of the group. Often the best way to benefit one’s group is to displace, ...more

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A design can excel at one challenge only by compromising at others.

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Thinking is computation, I claim, but that does not mean that the computer is a good metaphor for the mind. The mind is a set of modules, but the modu...more

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The Darwinian approach to sex is often attacked as being antifeminist, but that is just wrong. Indeed, the accusation is baffling on the face of it, e...more

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Apes have a wide variety of sexual arrangements. That means, by the way, that there is no such thing as an “ape legacy” that humans are doomed to live...more

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It looks as if the offspring have eyes so that they can see well (bad, teleological, backward causation), but that's an illusion. The offspring have e...more

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Evolutionarily speaking, there is seldom any mystery in why we seek the goals we seek — why, for example, people would rather make love with an attrac...more

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The idea that boys want to sleep with their mothers strikes most men as the silliest thing they have ever heard. Obviously, it did not seem so to Freu...more

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Today we recognize that the emotion of disgust evolved as an unconscious defense against biological contamination.