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possible, at some future date, to show which other hominids shared the genes underlying our apparently unique mental abilities. For example, if Neanderthals are found to share some of the same genes for language, art, music, and intelligence that modern humans have, then we could infer that those capacities evolved at least 600,000 years ago. Although behavior does not fossilize, some of the DNA underlying behavior does, and it can sometimes last long enough for us to analyze.
The DNA revolution will unveil many more aspects of human evolution and human psychology. I cannot yet show you the many genes that must underlie each of the human mental adaptations analyzed in this book. However, the genetic evidence that will emerge in the coming years will probably render my ideas—even the apparently most speculative ones—fully testable in ways I cannot anticipate. My sexual choice theory sometimes sounds as if it could explain anything, and hence explains nothing. This overlooks the fact that biologists are developing ever more sophisticated ways of testing which adaptations have evolved through sexual selection, and many of these methods—including a range of new genetic analyses—can be applied to human mental traits. Indeed, one goal of this book is to inspire other scientists to join me in testing these ideas.
What We Can Expect From a
Theory of Human Mental Evolution
Any theory of human mental evolution should, I think, strive to meet three criteria: evolutionary, psychological, and personal. The evolutionary criteria are paramount. Any theory of human mental evolution should play by the rules of evolutionary biology, using accepted principles of descent, variation, selection, genetics, and adaptation. It is best not to introduce speculative new
processes of the sort that have been touted recently, such as "gene-culture co-evolution," "cognitive fluidity as a side-effect of having a large brain," or "quantum consciousness." Complex adaptations such as human mental capacities need to be explained by cumulative selection for a function that promotes survival or reproduction.
This evolutionary criterion makes it much more important to identify the selection pressures that shaped each adaptation than to identify how the adaptation went through some series of structural changes, having started from some primitive state. Complex adaptations are explained by identifying functional features and specifying their fitness costs and benefits in a biological context. The emphasis is on what and why, rather than how, when, or where. For every theory of every adaptation, there is one demand that modern biologists make: show me the fitness! That is, show how this trait promoted survival or reproduction.
Psychologically, the human mind as explained by the theory should bear some resemblance to the minds of ordinary women and men as we know them. The mental adaptations described in the theory should fit our understanding of normal human abilities and personalities. If you're married, imagine your in-laws. If you commute by public transport, visualize your traveling companions. They're the kinds of minds the theory should account for: ordinary people, in all their variation. We should not worry too much about the minds of exceptional geniuses such as theoretical physicists and management consultants. We are not really trying to explain "the human mind" as a single uniform trait, but human minds as collections of adaptations with details that vary according to age, sex, personality, culture, occupation, and so forth. Still, differences within our species are minor compared with differences across species, so it can be useful to analyze "the human mind" as distinct from "the chimpanzee mind" or "the mind of the blue-footed booby."
Finally, any theory of human origins should be satisfying at a personal level. It should give us insight into our own consciousness- It should seem as compelling in our rare moments of
personal lucidity as it is