Humans are selfish – But not in the way you think.

Humans generally like to think of themselves as nice people, and most people tend to value compassionate behaviours over selfish behaviours (74% in the UK) [6] Not only that by infants have been shown to behave in compassionate ways even when there is no obvious reward [8], suggesting that people are naturally compassionate.  Which makes complete sense since we are social animals.

So how is it then I can say humans are naturally selfish?  It all has to do with the way we define selfish behavior.

Advertisements

Sex differences in mating-

Sex differences in Interests-

Evolutionary adaptations to meat-eating in humans.

Abstract

This article reviews the myriad of different genetic, physiological, morphological and nutritional adaptations in humans to eat meat.  These adaptations suggest human ancestors had a high reliance on meat and challenge the idea held by a substantial portion of the general public, and even some academics, that humans are “naturally” herbivores and that our current meat-eating habit is facultative. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that humans are omnivores, being well equipped to eat substantial portions of animal tissue and have eaten meat since the dawn of our genus “Homo” millions of years ago.

Sex differences in Intelligence – In-depth analysis.

Sex and domestic violence – Have you been led astray?

Introduction

When the average person thinks about domestic violence they likely think of a male perpetrator and a female victim and many of us assume that the numbers support that idea.  This article reviews the most comprehensive analysis of the data on intimate partner violence (IPV) to date, The Partner Abuse State of Knowledge project (PASK) [0].

The PASK project was a massive review by 42 scholars and 70 research assistants at 20 universities and research institutions which summarized the results from 1700 different studies.

I found the data which shows the differences of violence between the sexes, of mainly heterosexual couples, this data supports the idea that in general IPV is close to symmetrical among each sex, even when considering data from patriarchal countries.

Animal sourced foods and the environment.

There is no question that the current affair of livestock production is an environmental disaster. The most notable problems being greenhouse gas emissions, land usage and water usage.  These problems are very severe and the best course of action would be to drastically reduce the consumption of meat/dairy, and hence the production in the world.

But, what is the optimal system for the environment when it comes to livestock production?  If everybody in the world consumed no animal foods would that be the best option? Or is some animal foods a good thing?  These questions will be addressed.

“Humans are herbivores!”-Except, not really.

So, Peta had done an article on their website (http://www.peta.org/living/food/natural-human-diet/)  proclaiming that humans are naturally herbivores.  Now I have no problems against vegetarians/vegans, but I do LOVE me some evolutionary biology, so I decided to go through the article and evaluate their claims that humans are naturally herbivores and not omnivores [See my previous blog, [here] where I examine the myriad of adaptations in humans to eat meat].

So, let’s get started, and see what evidence they present to support their claim.