Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T08:48:33.746Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Natural Selection

from Part I - Foundations of Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2022

By
Anna G. B. Sedlacek
Edited by
Todd K. Shackelford
Todd K. Shackelford
Affiliation:
Oakland University, Michigan
Get access

Summary

Human beings are one of the innumerable products of the process of evolution by natural selection. As such, understanding our psychological makeup requires an appreciation of the mechanism of natural selection itself. When a population of reproducing entities has (1) variation in traits, (2) inheritance of variation, and (3) nonrandom differential reproduction, entities with traits that are good at making themselves more numerous will, by definition, tend to be better represented in future generations. Organisms that are best able to interact with their environment in a way that promotes their own reproduction are favored automatically. Under consistent environmental conditions, small changes in inherited traits can add up to complex adaptations by adding incremental improvements to the organisms’ fit with the environment. The relationship between variation and inheritance is complex in organisms because variation is manifest in the phenotype, but inheritance occurs between genotypes. The relationship between these two aspects of organisms is complex because genes must act through interaction with the environment. Further complications arise due to the blindness of natural selection to changes in future environments and available variation. Despite these intricacies, natural selection has crafted vastly complex and diverse organisms over the course of billions of years, with no foresight or thought.

Keywords

natural selectionfitnessreproductive successgenotypephenotype
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology , pp. 3 - 20
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Buss, D. M. (1995). Evolutionary psychology: A new paradigm for psychological science. Psychological Inquiry, 6(1), 1–30.Google Scholar
Centanni, T. M., Green, J. R., Iuzzini-Seigel, J., Bartlett, C. W., & Hogan, T. P. (2015). Evidence for the multiple hits genetic theory for inherited language impairment: A case study. Frontiers in Genetics, 6, 272.Google Scholar
Cobb, M. (2017). 60 years ago, Francis Crick changed the logic of biology. PLoS Biology, 15(9), e2003243.Google Scholar
Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1994). Better than rational: Evolutionary psychology and the invisible hand. American Economic Review, 84(2), 327–332.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. (1859). Origin of species: First edition, along with the complete original unpublished essays that described the theory of evolution [Kindle Paperwhite version]. Red and Black Publishers. Retrieved from Amazon.com.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (2016a). The extended phenotype: The long reach of the gene [Kindle Paperwhite version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (2016b). The selfish gene (40th anniversary edition) [Kindle Paperwhite version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1996). Darwin’s dangerous idea: Evolution and the meaning of life [Kindle Paperwhite version]. Simon & Schuster. Retrieved from Amazon.com.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (2017). From bacteria to Bach and back: The evolution of minds. [Kindle edition]. W.W. Norton & Company. Retrieved from Amazon.com.Google Scholar
Forbes, A. A., & Krimmel, B. A. (2010) Evolution is change in the inherited traits of a population through successive generations. Nature Education Knowledge, 3(10), 6.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2009). Darwinian populations and natural selection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heams, T. T., Huneman, P., Lecointre, G., & Silberstein, M. (2015). Introduction. In Heams, T., Huneman, P., Lecointre, G., & Silberstein, M. (Eds.), Handbook of evolutionary thinking in the sciences (pp. 1–5). Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Hoyle, F. (1983). The intelligent universe. London: Holt, Reinhardt, & Winston.Google Scholar
Kang, C., & Drayna, D. (2011). Genetics of speech and language disorders. Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, 12, 145–164.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Larson, A. (2016). History of adaptation. In Kliman, R. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of evolutionary biology (pp. 1–8). New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lehtonen, J., Parker, G. A., & Schärer, L. (2016). Why anisogamy drives ancestral sex roles. Evolution, 70(5), 1129–1135.Google Scholar
Le Paige, M. (2008, April 16). Evolution myths: Evolution is random. New Scientist. Retrieved from www.newscientist.com/article/dn13698-evolution-myths-evolution-is-randomGoogle Scholar
Mattison, D. R. (2010). Environmental exposures and development. Current Opinion in Pediatrics, 22(2), 208.Google Scholar
Newbury, D. F., & Monaco, A. P. (2010). Genetic advances in the study of speech and language disorders. Neuron, 68(2), 309–320.Google Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary (n.d.) Design. In Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved from www-oed-com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/view/Entry/50840Google Scholar
Pfaus, J. G. (2009). Reviews: Pathways of sexual desire. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 6(6), 1506–1533.Google Scholar
Soderstrom, M. (1998, Fall). The very popular scientist: Steven Pinker on how our minds evolved. McGill News Alumni Quarterly. Retrieved from https://mcgillnews-archives.mcgill.ca/f98/pinker.htmGoogle Scholar
Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1990). The past explains the present: Emotional adaptations and the structure of ancestral environments. Ethology & Sociobiology, 11(4–5), 375–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1992). The psychological foundations of culture. In Barkow, J. H., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture (pp. 19–136). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vakirtzis, A. (2011, April). Mate choice copying and nonindependent mate choice: A critical review. Annales Zoologici Fennici, 48(2), 91–107.Google Scholar
Williams, G. C. (1972). Adaptation and natural selection: A critique of some current evolutionary thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wright, S. (1932). The roles of mutation, inbreeding, crossbreeding, and selection in evolution. Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress on Genetics, 1(8), 355–366.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×