Evolutionary Psychology Quotes

An intelligent couple can read their Darwin and know that the ultimate reason for their sexual urges is procreation. They know that the woman cannot conceive because she is on the pill. Yet they find that their sexual desire is in no way diminished by the knowledge. Sexual desire is sexual desire and its force, in an individual's psychology, is independent of the ultimate Darwinian pressure that drove it. It is a strong urge which exists independently of its ultimate rationale.

The primitive stages can always be re-established; the primitive mind is, in the fullest meaning of the word, imperishable.

Male aggression and lust are the energizing factors in culture. They are men's tools of survival in the pagan vastness of female nature.

We've got paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technologies.

There was an idea that God created man different from other animals, because man was rational and animals had drives and instincts. That idea of a rational man that was specially created went out the window when Darwin showed that we evolved from animal ancestors, that we have instincts, much as do animals, and that our instincts are very important. It was a much more sophisticated, nuanced, and rich view of the human mind.

It is almost as if the human brain were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism, and to find it hard to believe

I suspect that a substantial fraction of human problems in the world today, not just cults, result from the mismatch between the current environment and the environment in which we evolved.

A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain; you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.

It is a good thing that women are so easily manipulated. Otherwise, most of us wouldn't be here.

I don't think [being monogamous] is a natural instinct for human beings, but it doesn't mean I don't believe in monogamy or true love. I believe in finding a soul mate. Monogamy can be hard work for some people. I don't think it applies to everybody, and I don't think a lot of people can do it.

I'm an anarchist. I'm implacably opposed to heirarchical systems of power and control. I also mistrust crowds, as they often operate according to their lowest common denominator. In terms of evolutionary psychology, the crowd is very close to a herd of stampeding wildebeest.

I have an odd theory on happiness, and it bothers people. My general theory is that happiness is a reward for an animal doing what it should be doing. So if a horse runs, it feels happy. Or if you are too thin, you can't be happy, because evolution wants you to be tense and anxious, trying to wake up in the morning looking for food.

Since the dawn of time, women have been attracted to mates with strong survival skills—like intelligence and physical prowess— because men with these qualities are more likely to bring home dinner at the end of the day.” He stuck his thumbs in the air and grinned. “Dinner equals survival, team

Ladies, you may not realize this, understand this, or even believe this, but everything else we do is ultimately for you. Men don't do anything-create art, build businesses, donate to charity, invent things, or do anything noteworthy-for any reason other than to impress women, and thus get them to have sex with us. If women didn't exist, we'd still just be naked grunting apes living in caves. In a very real way, pussy is the key to human civilization. You don't have to like it, but it's a fact; if you understand it, you understand men.

I can't think of anyone who is up on evolutionary psychology and related areas who is deluded enough to be called a utopian.

The alternative to thinking in evolutionary terms is not to think at all.

Some people think that evolutionary psychology claims to have discovered that human nature is selfish and wicked. But they are flattering the researchers and anyone who would claim to have discovered the opposite. No one needs a scientist to measure whether humans are prone to knavery. The question has been answered in the history books, the newspapers, the ethnographic record, and the letters to Ann Landers. But people treat it like an open question, as if someday science might discover that it's all a bad dream and we will wake up to find that it is human nature to love one another.

...we must be wary of granting too much power to natural selection by viewing all basic capacities of our brain as direct adaptations.

Evolutionary psychology tells us that men, especially powerful men, feel invincible and entitled to spread their seed, and that women can't resist the scent of masculine power. Women, by contrast, are said to be more altruistic and collaborative, seeking power so that they can share it with others.

I want to talk about the nature of human beings or how we're evolving as a race.

… the enforcement of public opinion depends on our appreciation of the approbation and disapprobation of others; and this appreciation is founded on our sympathy, which it can hardly be doubted was originally developed through natural selection as one of the most important elements of the social instincts.

For the person and for the species love is the form of behavior having the highest survival value.

An eye for beauty locks onto faces that show signs of health and fertility - just as one would predict if it had evolved to help the beholder find the fittest mate.

I don't think I was constructed to be monogamous. I don't think it's the nature of any man to be monogamous. Men are propelled by genetically ordained impulses over which they have no control to distribute their seed into as many females as possible.

[Evolution Theory] is the motivating factor for guys like Hitler and Stalin and George Bush, by the way, who is a Satan worshipper, like we don't know that.