Evolutionary Psychology Quotes

“[L]asting love is something a person has to decide to experience. Lifelong monogamous devotion is just not natural—not for women even, and emphatically not for men. It requires what, for lack of a better term, we can call an act of will. . . . This isn't to say that a young man can't hope to be seized by love. . . . But whether the sheer fury of a man's feelings accurately gauges their likely endurance is another question. The ardor will surely fade, sooner or later, and the marriage will then live or die on respect, practical compatibility, simple affection, and (these days, especially) determination. With the help of these things, something worthy of the label 'love' can last until death. But it will be a different kind of love from the kind that began the marriage. Will it be a richer love, a deeper love, a more spiritual love? Opinions vary. But it's certainly a more impressive love.”
― Robert Wright, The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are - The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology

“Some people think that evolutionary psychology claims to have discovered that human nature is selfish and wicked. But they are flattering the researchers and anyone who would claim to have discovered the opposite. No one needs a scientist to measure whether humans are prone to knavery. The question has been answered in the history books, the newspapers, the ethnographic record, and the letters to Ann Landers. But people treat it like an open question, as if someday science might discover that it's all a bad dream and we will wake up to find that it is human nature to love one another.”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“Any human endeavor rooted in the pursuit of truth must rely on fact and not feelings.”
― Gad Saad, Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense

“The common denominator of all jokes is a path of expectation that is diverted by an unexpected twist necessitating a complete reinterpretation of all the previous facts — the punch-line…Reinterpretation alone is insufficient. The new model must be inconsequential. For example, a portly gentleman walking toward his car slips on a banana peel and falls. If he breaks his head and blood spills out, obviously you are not going to laugh. You are going to rush to the telephone and call an ambulance. But if he simply wipes off the goo from his face, looks around him, and then gets up, you start laughing. The reason is, I suggest, because now you know it’s inconsequential, no real harm has been done. I would argue that laughter is nature’s way of signaling that "it’s a false alarm." Why is this useful from an evolutionary standpoint? I suggest that the rhythmic staccato sound of laughter evolved to inform our kin who share our genes; don’t waste your precious resources on this situation; it’s a false alarm. Laughter is nature’s OK signal.”
― V.S. Ramachandran, A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers

“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 modules are not encapsulated boxes or circumscribed swatches on the surface of the brain. The organization of our mental modules comes from our genetic program, but that does not mean that there is a gene for every trait or that learning is less important than we used to think. The mind is an adaptation designed by natural selection, but that does not mean that everything we think, feel, and do is biologically adaptive. We evolved from apes, but that does not mean we have the same minds as apes. And the ultimate goal of natural selection is to propagate genes, but that does not mean that the ultimate goal of people is to propagate genes.”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“The typical imperative from biology is not "Thou shalt... ," but "If ... then ... else.”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“You are not alone in the struggles of life. Entire cosmos is with you. It evolves through the way you face and overcome challenges of life. Use everything in your advantage.”
― Amit Ray, Mindfulness Meditation for Corporate Leadership and Management

“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 attractive partner than get a slap on the belly with a wet fish.”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“If there is any hope for changing the world for the better, from reducing family violence to reversing overpopulation and international conflict, economists, educators, and political leaders will need to base their interventions on a sound understanding of what people are really like, not on some fairy-tale version of what we would like them to be.”
― Douglas T. Kenrick, Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life: A Psychologist Investigates How Evolution, Cognition, and Complexity are Revolutionizing our View of Human Nature

“You are not the king of your brain. You are the creepy guy standing next to the king going, ‘A most judicious choice, sire.”
― Steven Kaas

“What is the Conscious leap?

Conscious leap is a term that refers to a process of change.
It specifies a particular point in the process where a change cannot be undone or reversed.

The leap is the singularity point ,the point of no return.
It will be a fundamental change in everybody's way of living.
Not everybody will remain alive during this turbulent phase.

Thought of the Day”
― Katerina Kostaki, Cosmic Light

“Обывательский вариант подхода к соотношению между мыслями и чувствами с одной стороны и стремлением к достижению целей с другой — не только отсталый, но и неправильный. Мы склонны полагать, что наши решения начинаются с выработки суждений, в согласии с которыми и осуществляются наши поступки: «мы» решаем, кто приятен и поэтому оказываем ему дружескую поддержку, «мы» решаем, кто откровенен, и приветствуем его, «мы» вычисляем, кто неправ, и противимся ему, «мы» вычисляем, что есть истина, и следуем ей. К этой картине Фрейд добавил бы, что у нас часто есть цели, которых мы не осознаём, цели, которые могут преследоваться косвенным, даже контрпродуктивным способом, и что наше восприятие мира может деформироваться в ходе этого процесса.
Но насколько эволюционной психологии можно верить, настолько эта картина должна быть вывернута наизнанку. Мы доверяем чему-либо — ценности персональной этики и даже объективной правде — лишь потому, что это возбуждает поведение, передающее наши гены в следующее поколение (или, по крайней мере, передававшее наши гены в древней обстановке). Эти поведенческие цели — статус, секс, эффективная коалиция, родительские инвестиции и так далее — остаются неизменными, в то время, как наше восприятие действительности настраивается, чтобы приспособиться к этому постоянству. Всё, что отвечает нашим генетическим интересам, кажется нам «правом», нравственным правом, объективным правом, какой бы напряжённости это ни потребовало. Короче говоря, если Фрейд подчеркивал трудности людей в наблюдении правды о себе, новые дарвинисты подчёркивают трудности и наблюдения, и понимания правды. Дарвинизм вплотную подходит к тому, чтобы подвергнуть сомнению само значение слова «правда». Над светскими беседами, которые возможно могут открыть правду, — беседами о морали, политическими беседами и даже иногда академическими беседами — дарвинизм включает свет элементарной борьбы за власть. Кто-то в этих дискуссиях победит, но часто нет оснований ожидать, что этим победителем будет правда. Возможно, что цинизм глубже фрейдовского трудно вообразить, но он существует.”
― Robert Wright, Моральное животное

“Anthropologist Donald Symons is as amazed as we are at frequent attempts to argue that monogamous gibbons could serve as viable models for human sexuality, writing, "Talk of why (or whether) humans pair bond like gibbons strikes me as belonging to the same realm of discourse as talk of why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.”
― Cacilda Jethá, Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality

“We get into fights or lust for imperial dominion over another nation for reasons of pride.”
― Richard W. Wrangham, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence

“Natural selection shaped us to care enormously about waht other people think about our resources, abilities, and character. This is what self-esteem is all about. We constantly monitor how much others value us. Low self-esteem is a signal to try harder to please others.”
― Randolph M. Nesse, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry

“Если Триверс прав, если формирование совести молодого человека включает частично инструкцию о выгодном обмане (и выгодную защиту от обмана), то можно ожидать, что маленькие дети будут легко изучать практику обмана. И это, пожалуй, преуменьшение. Джин Пиагет, в своём исследовании морального развития в 1932 году, написала, что "склонность говорить неправду — естественная тенденция… Непринуждённая и универсальная". Последующие исследования подтвердили это.
[...]
Смысл здесь в том, что эти детские неправды — это не только стадия безвредного проступка, на который мы закрываем глаза, но первый из серии тестов на корыстную непорядочность. Посредством положительного подкрепления (для необнаруженных и плодотворных неправд) и отрицательного подкрепления (для неправд, которые раскрываются товарищами или влекут выговор семьи) мы изучаем, где можно, а где нельзя избежать последствий, и что наша семья рассматривает (или нет), как законный обман.
То, что родители редко читают детям лекции про ложь и добродетель, не означает, что они не обучают их лгать. Дети явно продолжают лгать, если это не будет настоятельно пресекаться. И не только те дети, чьи родители лгут чаще, чем в среднем, имеют шансы стать хроническими лгунами; но также дети, растущие без должного родительского присмотра. Если родители не препятствуют неправде детей, заведомо выгодной для них, и если они говорят такие неправды в их присутствии, то они дают им продвинутый курс лжи.”
― Robert Wright, Моральное животное

“[...] found that altruists have tend to more partners than the chronically self-interested, and that altruism is particularly good at elevating men's sexual success.”
― Steve Stewart-Williams, The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve

“Our deep-time ancestors very likely had the genetic resources needed for formal quantitative reasoning, but without the cultural invention of numerals and a umber line, those resources could not be exploited. The same may be true of language. The central role of cultural learning in the construction and transmission of language (qua social phenomenon) is enough to show that the use of language depends on cultural scaffolds, not just appropriate genetic potential.”
― Ronald J. Planer, From Signal to Symbol: The Evolution of Language

“Nothing exists without a creator.”
― Kamaran Ihsan Salih

“The general rule is that whatever females want, males evolve to provide it.”
― Steve Stewart-Williams, The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve

“If groups could come together in low-anxiety situations, they discovered, these strangers would have the chance to empathize with one another... Most policies are enacted witht he assumption that a change in attitude will lead to a change in behaviour, but in the case of intergroup conflict, it is the change in behaviour- in the form of contact - that will most likely change attitudes.”
― Brian Hare Vanessa Woods

“This ability to distinguish biological movement appears to be highly conserved in the animal kingdom, having been demonstrated in species of mammals, birds, fish, and spiders. In fact, it might even be innate in some species. In one study, newborn chicks were placed on a runway with a video projected on either side, each depicting points of light with biological or nonbiological movement, similar to the ones in Blake’s experiment (see figure 10). The chicks showed a clear preference for the biological movement, even when it corresponded to a cat’s and not a chicken’s. What’s most interesting about this is that the chicks had been bred in the dark, and had not had any visual experience until that moment, which is evidence that this preference in them is innate and not learned. And, once again, it doesn’t manifest when the image is inverted and therefore doesn’t follow the law of gravity.”
― Susana Monsó, Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death

“Their relationship echoed, in many ways, the binds of trust and mutual protection that kept prisoners alive and sane in Nazi concentration camps. In those camps, researchers found, the "basic unit of survival" was the pair, not the individual.”
― Blaine Harden, Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West

“The awakening of consciousness. Although not punctual, it started like a silent explosion. And today, after this long latent period, it has taken on a continuous character… like evolution itself.”
― Raydrich Rocha, Consciência: Delírios e Galopes

“O despertar da consciência. Embora não pontual, foi como uma explosão silenciosa, seu início.
E hoje, após esse longo período latente, adquiriu caráter contínuo… Como a própria evolução.”
― Raydrich Rocha, Consciência: Delírios e Galopes

“The duality that is inherent to us… A division of wills, of desires, which causes us to be inhabited by an internal struggle between various entities... What makes us a single being? If we are the synergy of the trillions of cells that inhabit us, which have evolved with the history of the Earth and our species through their adaptations, and that are in constant replacement and renewal throughout an individual's life.”
― Raydrich Rocha

“A dualidade que nos é inerente… Uma divisão de vontades, de quereres, que faz com que sejamos
habitados por uma luta interna entre diversas entidades… O que faz de nós um único ser? Se somos a sinergia entre as trilhões de células que nos habitam, que evoluíram com a história da terra e da nossa espécie através de suas adaptações, e que estão em constante substituição e renovação durante a vida de um indivíduo.”
― Raydrich Rocha, Consciência: Delírios e Galopes

“In essence, your mind isn’t truly of one mind; it’s an assembly of different processes and perspectives, honed over eons of evolution, each with its own agenda and voice.”
― Kevin L. Michel, The Council of Gods

“With evolutionary power comes ethical duty.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Malamuth, Sockloskie, Koss, and Tanaka (1991) proposed a model of the characteristics of aggressors that suggests that coercive sex may be conceptualized as resulting from the convergence of (1) relatively high levels of ‘impersonal’ sex and (2) hostile, dominating characteristics… According to this model, the determinants of coercive sex can often be traced to early home experiences and parent–child interactions… Individuals experiencing this type of home environment may develop negative views of male–female relationships, which may foster a relatively impersonal orientation to sexuality, a hostile ‘schema’ about social relationships, or both.” (pp. 281–282)”
― David M. Buss, Sex, Power, Conflict: Evolutionary and Feminist Perspectives