Living Fossils Overview
I. Background
We at Living Fossils start with the assumptions and logic that underlie the field generally known as “evolutionary psychology.”1 Because these ideas have been laid out in a number of places by various authors, our goal in this Overview is to highlight some of the main concepts and provide relevant sources for further exploration.
For the reader interested in working through an accessible, book-length treatment of the field, there is probably still no better place to start than How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker. There are a number of key ideas in the book. First, evolution is the causal force that explains how organisms came to be exquisitely well-designed to survive and reproduce. Second, nervous systems—including the human brain—were designed by natural selection no less than other systems. Third, the mind can be profitably modeled as a thing that computes. And fourth, because specialized systems with narrow functions are superior to generalized systems with broad functions, the human mind is likely to consist of a large number of integrated specialized systems.
For those looking for a shorter statement of the field’s commitments, this primer has stood the test of time, even if the layout of the webpage has not. For those who prefer their information in video form, this interview of Laith Al-Shawaf by Ricardo Lopes is a friendly way to start. Laith’s series in Areo is also helpful for clearing up misconceptions about the field.2
Speaking of misconceptions, something we’ll be vigilant about is the nature of explanations. People, including scientists, can get confused about what counts as an explanation. (See Gerd Gigernzer’s work for more on this.) Because explanations are tricky things, particularly when it comes to evolution, we will embrace Niko Tinbergen’s different kinds of explanations. For example, why do male peacocks have large tails? Well, male peacocks with larger tails were more attractive to mates and left more offspring, leading the trait to spread (functional explanation). Equally, male peacocks develop in a particular way, and the interaction between specific genes and their environment leads to the growth of the tail (developmental explanation). These are both explanations, and one does not preclude the other. In fact, different levels of explanation are complementary and mutually informative.
Generally, explanations need to provide a causal account of some kind. Some “explanations” don’t, in fact, explain anything. One way to spot a bad explanation is if it’s a word or two. Culture. Learning. Salience. Yes, even the word “evolution,” by itself, is not an explanation. We’ll return to this from time to time in our posts. Good explanations are special things; don’t be satisfied with bad ones.
II. Core Concepts of Evolutionary Psychology
There are three core concepts to understanding evolutionary psychology (EP) which we consider particularly important.
The first one derives from the fact that evolution is slow and took place in ancestral environments which differed in important ways from current environments. Many generations are needed for gene frequencies to change in populations, and human generations are measured in years, rather than, say, minutes, as in the case of some very small organisms. The slowness of evolution means that the genes humans have in their cells today were selected in environments that differed in some ways from the present environment. Therefore, the systems these genes create over the course of development must be understood in the context of those previous environments. The usual example is appetite. Because we evolved in a world without grocery stores or marshmallow Peeps, our taste for sweets leads to health outcomes very different from what would have been the case in the past. For a great treatment of evolutionary mismatches, give Mean Genes by Terry Burnham a read.
Secondly, some traits of organisms are adaptations, some are side-effects, and some derive from noise. In short, not all aspects of organisms are adaptations, but for some reason, people have often understood evolutionary psychologists as making the reverse claim. (These scholars—of both older and more recent vintage—then helpfully explain why all aspects of organisms are not, in fact, adaptations.) Take the whiteness of teeth as an example. Calcium has the adaptive function of contributing strength to bones and teeth, and just so happens to be white, making the whiteness of teeth a byproduct (or side-effect), rather than adaptive in its own right. In general, we endorse the argument made by George Williams that to say something is an adaptation is a strong claim requiring strong evidence.
Thirdly, development is, in a word, complex. Traits emerge over time as a result of the interaction between genes and the environment, where the notion of environment is meant in a very broad sense, including everything from other genes to temperature to shared beliefs in other people’s heads.3
III. Emotions
Evolutionary psychologists generally take emotions to be specialized systems designed to generate adaptive responses to threats and opportunities in the physical and social environment. For a relatively short and accessible overview, we suggest you start with this piece, though book-length treatments are also available.4
Over evolutionary time, our ancestors had to avoid and escape predators, find and attract mates, care for and protect offspring, compete for resources, cultivate friendships, and so forth. These recurring problems selected for systems designed to respond adaptively to them. These systems include physiological responses, such as increasing heart rate, as well as psychological responses, such as directing attention to whatever the threat or opportunity might be. (As Darwin noticed— and wrote about in his lesser-known book, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals—many emotions also have characteristic facial expressions; signaling one’s state to others can itself be adaptive.)
Consider anger. In the competitive game of life, our ancestors would have occasionally been faced with someone who was intent on harming them to better their own position. When someone tries to harm you, you might feel an initial unpleasant emotion that we call fear, followed by anger.5 Anger, in turn, leads to focusing your attention on whoever harmed you and, often, planning a way to harm them back. Revenge, after all, is useful to deter your attacker—and others who learn about your vengeance—from harming you again. In this way, anger adaptively trains others in your social world. (See Michael McCullough’s book, Beyond Revenge, for an excellent account of anger, as well as forgiveness.)
Emotions have a critical role in shaping our behavior and decision-making. However, in the modern environment, emotions can have unfortunate outcomes. For example, when someone cuts us off on the road, we experience anger, the adaptive response to the perception of threat or harm. But in this situation, there is no point in seeking revenge because we will never see that person again. By recognizing when our emotions are serving us well and when they are not, we can learn to regulate them effectively and make more informed choices.
IV. Evolutionary Theory in Clinical Psychology
Despite the potentially powerful applications of evolutionary science to the field of mental health, relatively little cross-pollination has occurred. Of the 66 therapeutic orientations listed on Psychology Today, not one of them begins with an evolutionary point of view.6 Other evidence of the disconnect is that the two most popular therapeutic approaches, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT), both ascribe the cause of “negative” emotions, such as anger and anxiety, to “distorted” and “irrational” thoughts that are “unrealistic.” These conceptualizations omit the ultimate explanation for emotions, focusing instead on their local, sometimes suboptimal, consequences.
The absence of evolutionary ideas in clinical psychology (CP) is odd. First, every client is, undeniably, a member of Homo sapiens, but you wouldn’t know it from the various proposals about how mental illness develops and is treated.7 These proposals imply that how the mind was designed is irrelevant to how it functions (or malfunctions). Further, the field of clinical psychology ought to be desperate for better theories and, in turn, better therapeutic results, given that mental health appears to be declining in our country, especially among teens, and that therapy may not be as effective as commonly presumed.8 So far, however, the field has been content to rely on the creation stories of its founders. Whereas physical sciences dealing with humans (e.g., medicine, genetics) and sciences dealing with animals (e.g., ecology, animal behavior) take evolution as their starting point, social sciences (e.g., psychology, economics, cultural anthropology) often do not.
How would an evolutionary-informed view differ from current therapeutic models and practices? Let’s take an example. Therapists broadly agree that clients need self-esteem to succeed in the world, so many therapists try to boost their clients’ self-esteem. An evolutionary point of view does not take self-esteem to be a prerequisite to social success, however, but rather an indicator of social inclusion. Trying to inflate self-esteem is like manually moving the gas arrow toward “Full” without adding any gas to the car.9 An evolutionary psychologist would instead focus on what could improve this client’s social relationships. This is importantly different from inflating client self-esteem by, for example, questioning their negative assumptions about themselves or saying nice things to them. In fact, this perspective of self-esteem might help explain one of the major conclusions from the therapeutic effectiveness literature, that the strength of the relationship between client and therapist is the best predictor of therapeutic outcomes: the therapist, after all, comes to represent a meaningful relationship in the client’s life, which self-esteem is measuring.
Another difference would be the kind of emphasis placed on emotions. As indicated above, evolutionary psychology sees emotions as adaptations that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. These systems are often mismatched with our modern environment, leading to significant amounts of human suffering. In working with this mismatch, EP would begin with the emotion’s function. What is the emotion measuring and what is it motivating? There is no reason why positive emotions cannot be understood from this perspective, as well, and help illuminate the path to the good life.
Much of the time, the difference between an EP and CP approach is subtle but (in our opinion) important. One of the less subtle insights from an evolutionary perspective, however, is that evolution doesn’t care about happiness. Happiness was not the metric by which we found ourselves here—reproduction was—and if we had to endure a little misery to get there, so be it. That said, if EP doesn’t have a feel-good answer to some of the issues that we’re going to address, the underlying ideas nevertheless provide an organized, grounded way to generate potential solutions to mental health problems.
While some attempts have been made to bring Darwin into the clinic, especially by, among others, Marco Del Giudice, Randolph Nesse, and Todd Shackleford,10 these efforts haven’t has as much impact as one might hope, which is why we are directing our Substack to the curious layperson, and not restricting ourselves to researchers or clinicians—although we hope that some of them read this, obviously, and find room for implementation in their work.
V. Who We Are, and What We Hope You’ll Gain from Living Fossils
We at Living Fossils are experts in the fields you’d expect: evolutionary and clinical psychology, as well as lifespan development and wellness. We’re also friends, which we hope will shine through our work. And here is what we are committed to, in order:
Enjoying ourselves
Not taking ourselves too seriously, but trying to be accurate about the important stuff like explanations (see above)
Trying to provide a helpful and applicable perspective on mental health
Admitting when we are wrong or clueless
Not being overly mean to people who have ideas with which we disagree
Meanwhile, we hope our readers walk away not just with an occasional nugget or strategy, but ideally a new perspective on their experience. Learning about this field changed each of our viewpoints in a qualitative way—the way that it’s impossible to shrink back from, once expanded. This experience has been a joy in each of our lives, and we hope to share that experience with you.
For readers familiar with this area, our work aligns with the “Santa Barbara” school of thought, though we will draw from other areas, not least the ideas about culture generally associated with Rob Boyd and Pete Richerson.
This little piece covers much of the same territory.
The chapter The Psychological Foundations of Culture in The Adapted Mind is still, many years on, among the clearest statements of these ideas.
See, e.g., Emotion and Adaptation (Lazarus) and The nature of emotion (Ekman and Davidson).
In a Galaxy far, far away, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and then, eventually, suffering.
Some theorists, including Freud himself, have mentioned evolutionary principles in the past, but these acknowledgements have largely been ignored or forgotten.
Two of the Living Fossils are licensed clinicians and these observations reflect their sense and experience.
See also Shedler, J. (2018). Where is the evidence for “evidence-based” therapy? Psychiatric Clinics, 41(2), 319-329.
Leary, M. R. (2005). Sociometer theory and the pursuit of relational value: Getting to the root of self-esteem. European review of social psychology, 16(1), 75-111.
See also: (1) Silberberg, P. J., & Thyer, B. A. (2023). Evolutionary psychology and social work. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 1-26. (2) Hayes, S. C., Hofmann, S. G., & Wilson, D. S. (2020). Clinical psychology is an applied evolutionary science. Clinical Psychology Review, 81, 101892.