The book compares the human mind to an old extension cord, and explains that the instinct to survive in hunter-gatherer societies continues to influence modern human psychology. However, the author argues that while evolutionary psychology can explain the past, it is limited in its ability to predict the future.
The metaphor “the human mind is an old toolbox” is a theme throughout the book, comparing the human mind to a toolbox filled with traditional tools (drills, saws, hammers, etc.) that have been used for millions of years. This sentence can raise a number of questions, ranging from the fundamental “Why is the mind an old toolbox?” to specific questions such as “Why traditional tools and not modern tools like pliers or nippers?” or “Why an old toolbox and not a new one? I disagree that the human mind is an old toolbox, and I’ll discuss this in more detail later in this article. First, let’s analyze some of the questions the book raises about the human mind and examine why.
The book argues that the human mind has evolved to solve a number of “adaptive problems” – problems that arise as we adapt to the environment we live in and leave offspring. To clarify this, let’s look at the book’s definitions of mind and evolution. According to the book, a mind is a system that produces a specific output given a specific input. For example, if Cheoljoo and Younghee saw a coin that fell and Cheoljoo liked it and picked it up, but Younghee didn’t pick it up because she didn’t think it was hers, their minds gave different outputs to the same input (the coin), which means that they have different minds. Evolution is also the process by which individuals with traits that increase their reproductive success in a particular environment are able to outcompete other individuals and leave offspring, and these traits are passed on to their offspring and accumulate. For example, if you have a puppy with a lot of hair and a puppy with little hair in a very cold environment, the hairier puppy will have an advantage in resisting the cold and leaving offspring. This puppy’s offspring will also be hairy, and the trait to resist the cold can include many traits, such as a thick layer of fat. Over time, the accumulation of these traits would lead the puppy to evolve into a more cold-resistant species.
Based on the definitions of mind and evolution mentioned earlier, the evolution of mind means that the outputs for certain inputs have changed to favor survival and reproduction in a particular environment. This particular environment is life on the African savannah, where humans have lived for over 95% of their history. The savanna is the intermediate zone between the lush rainforest and the arid desert, where hunting and gathering was the primary mode of survival. Humans evolved their minds to adapt to this environment. For example, we developed a sweet tooth for high-calorie sugars because hunter-gatherers who had a sweet tooth were more likely to leave offspring than those who did not, and this trait was passed on to future generations. Here, tasting sugar is the input and feeling sweet is the output. Evolution also explains why humans prefer corners in certain spaces. In the savannah, there were many predators, and it was safer to live in the corners where you could keep an eye on them than in the center. As a result, the traits of people who felt comfortable in the corners were passed on to later generations. In this way, the book defines human “instincts” as traits that are necessary for survival, such as the sweetness of sugar and the comfort of corners, and argues that these instincts collectively make up the modern human mind.
Now let’s take a look at why the human mind is analogized to an ‘old extension cord’. The human mind is an “old” extension cord because it has been shaped by millions of years of evolution, and it is an extension cord, not a computer or calculator, because the human mind did not evolve to solve profound questions like “What is God?” but rather to solve practical, basic problems of survival on the savannah grasslands. The reason why the extension of the toolbox is “traditional” and not modern is that humans spent most of their history as hunters and gatherers on the savannah, and therefore did not develop for the modern industrialized world.
So far, we’ve discussed the book’s argument that the human mind is an old extension of the human body. I disagree, and believe that evolutionary psychology offers a simplistic, contextualized explanation of human psychology. Evolutionary psychologists claim that the theory is useful for predicting the future, but it is limited in its ability to explain events that have already occurred and predict events that will occur in the future.
To demonstrate the inadequacy of evolutionary psychology’s piecemeal explanations for predicting the future, let’s look at a few examples of how evolutionary psychologists explain human psychology. First, evolutionary psychologists say that humans prefer corners in space. The argument is that our minds evolved that way because corners were more advantageous than centers on the savannah to protect against predator attacks. Second, as for why women prefer taller men and men prefer women with larger pelvises, evolutionary psychologists believe it’s because taller men were better able to fight off predators on the savannah, and women with larger pelvises are better able to give birth, which increases their reproductive success. Third, people have a tendency to show off because it helps them stand out to the opposite sex and increase their reproductive success. Finally, as for why men are more sexually active than women, he explains that men’s reproductive success is proportional to the number of times they have sex, whereas women have evolved to be more cautious because they value nurturing over sex.
Explanations like this show how illogical the logic of evolutionary psychology can be and how inadequate it is for predicting the future. For example, when a person walks into a cafe and wants to sit down, it’s hard to predict whether they’ll sit in the corner or in the center based on evolutionary psychology. If the person in the café is a tall man, he might want to sit in the corner (first example), but he might also prefer the center because he wants to show off his height (second and third examples), or he might be more aggressive and therefore more inclined to show off (last example). So, should this man sit in the corner or in the center? Conversely, if a woman with a small pelvis walked into a cafe, she would probably want to sit in the corner, being passive and trying to avoid attention. However, as a general observation, people tend to favor the edges in cafes. This shows that while evolutionary psychology can provide plausible explanations for past events, it has limitations in predicting the future.
Evolutionary psychologists might argue that because the theory is just coming to light, there is no clear baseline for human nature, and it’s difficult to establish one. However, if evolutionary psychology cannot provide a clear answer to how to prioritize the myriad of natures, it is hard to see how it can be valid for predicting future events.
I believe that evolutionary psychology is a fit-and-forget explanation, and without establishing a clear baseline for human psychology, evolutionary psychology is likely to remain a “psychological story”.
