Title: The Evolutionary Interpretation of Man: The Matryoshka Model
Abstract: This article analyzes the problem of why the human being has so many varied behavioral characteristics. Based on the latest insights of primatology, evolutionary psychology, anthropology, and sociology, it reconstructs the overall trends of human evolution and identifies five main steps of human development. Every step creates a specific type of construct, each of which in turn leads to certain behavioral programs. These constructs are built on top of one another, creating a Russian Nesting Doll (also called a Matryoshka doll)-type system. The article describes what happens when a human being is confronted with an environmental challenge. The challenge triggers a matching response and thus produces a behavior that is selected from the menu of possible programs. The results encompass a broad behavioral spectrum, ranging from human ethology and the modules of evolutionary psychology all the way to rules of thumb and rational decision-making. The article also argues that in order to understand the development of different social institutions (religion, state, morality, market), one needs to reconstruct and follow these evolutionary steps. Key Words: Cultural evolution; Behavioral programs; Evolutionary psychology; Evolution of institutions; Symbolic revolution; Cultural niche. One of the most interesting problems of the history of thought and science is the question: What is man? Experience suggests that depending on his life situation, man is characterized by contradictory features: he may be selfish and altruistic, foolish and wise, rational and irrational, full of empathy and prone to blind faith, or ready to kill others mercilessly. Religion was first in seeking an explanation for this complex behavior; philosophy was next in trying its hand at the problem. An autonomous scientific approach to the question was made possible by the creation of the concept of evolution. In the 20th century the various social sciences revealed in detail the fundamental complexity of human behavior. In economics, for instance, the notion of the homo oeconomicus was supplemented by a model of behavior that allows for emotional influence; e.g., giving in to peer pressure or, indeed, even irrationality (Gintis, H. et al., 2005, Kahneman, D. 2003.163.) Additionally, the model of evolution has also become an accepted method of describing behavioral complexity in the social sciences. In the present article - based on the latest results - we will propose a general framework to understand the behavioral complexity of human beings. For this purpose we will identify the crucial stages of man's biological and social evolution, we will present the adaptive evolutionary constructs created during these stages, and, finally, we will show how these - built on top of one another - establish the essence of man. The Evolutionary Perspective Seen from an evolutionary angle, beings are continuously forced to solve problems emanating from their environment (Popper, 1994). In so doing, they rely on the tools they inherited - their nails or feet, a change in their physical features, their associations, or their built nests. Occasionally, the environment will change substantially: climate is altered, the ecological environment is transformed, or a new competitor appears. In such situations, problems - so-called adaptive problems - arise that cannot be solved with the existing instruments (Barkow, J. et al., 1992.) That is when the craftsman mechanism of evolutionary construction is set in motion. Chance mutations and the evolutionary pressure exerted by the environment combine to achieve the formation of new instruments that - insofar as they prove effective - become fixed by virtue of selection. They are then passed on from generation to generation. Sometimes a whole new species will come into existence. Yet the relationship is not unidirectional; it is not only the environment that shapes the various species, but - at least partly - it is itself also shaped by the latter. …
Publication Year: 2011
Publication Date: 2011-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
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