Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!oddjob!gargoyle!att-ih!att-cb!clyde!watmath!watdragon!violet!kmgopinathan
From: kmgopinathan@violet.waterloo.edu (Krishna Gopinathan)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Evolutionary factors in human psychology
Message-ID: <6107@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: 30 Mar 88 19:27:28 GMT
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu
Distribution: sci
Lines: 24

If we model evolution as an incredibly long tournament of genes (mixed
n-tuples style), with mutations thrown in to make it interesting, then
the existence of almost every human genetic characteristic can be
explained by the survival advantage it gave to evolving man.  Standard
examples are human intelligence, the opposable thumb, and bipedal
motion.  A two-sided example is aggression -- an aggressive gene
survives individually -- a non-aggressive social gene survives because
its society does.  (which survives more?)

My question is:  Can the existence of common psychological phenomena be
linked to an evolutionary cause?  For example, did the Oedipus complex
give the young a better chance of survival?  Or are they cases of a
creature (man) being thrown into an environment for which it is not
suited.

Opinions as well as facts welcome.

krishna [But what is there?  All is Brahman.] gopinathan
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Krishna Gopinathan                                 kmgopina@water.bitnet
Dept. of Computer Science               kmgopinathan@violet.waterloo.edu
University of Waterloo             kmgopinathan@violet.waterloo.netnorth
Waterloo, Ontario   {uunet,utzoo,ubc-vision}!watmath!violet!kmgopinathan
------------------------------------------------------------------------