The Psychological Diversity of Mankind

79 Kaj_Sotala 09 May 2010 05:53AM

The dominant belief on this site seems to be in the "psychological unity of mankind". In other words, all of humanity shares the same underlying psychological machinery. Furthermore, that machinery has not had the time to significantly change in the 50,000 or so years that have passed after we started moving out of our ancestral environment.

In The 10,000 Year Explosion, Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending dispute part of this claim. While they freely admit that we have probably not had enough time to develop new complex adaptations, they emphasize the speed at which minor adaptations can spread throughout populations and have powerful effects. Their basic thesis is that the notion of a psychological unity is most likely false. Different human populations are likely for biological reasons to have slightly different minds, shaped by selection pressures in the specific regions the populations happened to live in. They build support for their claim by:

  • Discussing known cases where selection has led to rapid physiological and psychological changes among animals
  • Discussing known cases where selection has led to physiological changes among humans in the last few thousand years, as well as presenting some less certain hypotheses of this.
  • Postulating selection pressures that would have led to some cognitive abilities to be favored among humans.

In what follows, I will present their case by briefly summarizing the contents of the book. Do note that I've picked the points that I found the most interesting, leaving a lot out.

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