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By Root 966 0

in question must strictly speaking have as its goal survival or reproduction; it cannot something that, say, merely improves the quality of life for an organism, or is seen as desirable by it. This fundamental fact severely limits scope of evolutionary explanation. As Pinker puts it, “Evolutionary biology rules out, for example, adaptations that work toward the good species, the harmony of the ecosystem, beauty for its own sake, benefits to entities other than the replicators that create the adaptations g., horses that evolve saddles), functional complexity without reproductive benefit (e.g., an adaptation to compute the digits of pi), and anachronistic adaptations that benefit the organism in a kind of environment other than the one in which it evolved (e.g., an innate ability read or an innate concept of carburetor or trombone).” In other words, never enough for an evolutionary explanation of a biological or mental phenomenon to point out the phenomenon’s putative benefits for individuals for society, or for humanity as a whole.

The arts, for instance, are commonly thought to be good for us in number of ways, giving us a sense of well-being or feelings of comfort. Art may help us to see deeper into the human psyche, aid convalescents in hospitals to recover more quickly, or give us a better appreciation of the natural world. It may bind communities together, or alternatively show us the virtues of cultivating our individuality. Art may offer consolation in moments of life crisis, it may soothe the nerves, or it may produce a beneficial psychological catharsis, a purging of emotions that clears the mind or edifies the soul. Even if all of these claims were true, they could not by themselves validate a Darwinian explanation of the arts, unless they could somehow be connected with survival and reproduction. The problem here is a temptation to bask in warm feelings about the arts and then to trip over a stock fallacy of classical logic: “Evolved adaptations are advantageous for our species. The arts are advantageous for our species. Therefore, the arts are evolved adaptations.”

Whoa! Antibiotics and air-conditioning are advantageous for us, but unlike the eye, which is also advantageous, they are not evolved adaptations. Our lives are filled with contrivances and benefits designed by bequeathed to us by our culture’s traditions and technologies. These advantages are endlessly open-ended and variable. Evolved adaptations, however, are a relatively small though crucially important subclass of the long list of things that we may enjoy or benefit from. These adaptations may give us pain or plea sure, may provoke emotions, and may or may work to our advantage today, but they form part of our nature and personality because they possessed survival and reproductive advantages the ancient past of Homo sapiens. They constitute a stable, finite list that has not changed significantly since the savannas of the Pleistocene. They are the source of general human predilections and desires that act givens, the origin points of causal chains that motivate and validate goods and practices (including technologies) that constitute our culture.

Why do I like chocolates? In part, because they are sweet and Why do I like sweet and fat? There is no obvious answer to that question available to introspection: think about it as hard as you like, soul-searching and self-analysis can never by themselves tell you you enjoy sweet and fat. Evolution, thankfully, gave us capacities yearning to help us survive and reproduce in the ancestral world— explanation from evolution of why we have them was never part of the deal.

II

Chocolates, however, are not merely appealing delivery mechanisms for sucrose, fructose, and lipid compounds. They are culturally sanctioned, nomical ly conditioned, and technologically enabled ways not only satisfy hunger but to serve as gift or love tokens, or to demonstrate candy-maker’s artistry. Using a standard terminological distinction evolutionary psychology, hunger and a craving for sweets are the proximate cause of my eating