How does natural selection apply to humans? The fields of Biology and Psychology diverged instead of coming together as Darwin once thought they would.
John Broadus Watson symbolized the behaviourist approach and that psychology should not concentrate on its concern with unobservable entities such as minds and feelings. Both animals and human psychology should abandon any reference to consciousness and stess the importance of environmental conditioning. Watson was in opposition with Darwin and was very anti-evolutionary and anti-hereditarian when it came to human behavior.
William James looked at animals for the instinctive roots of human behaviors and morality and noticed they were modified by experience. Francis Galton associated the ideas of heredity and instinct with dangerous political thoughts. They misinterpreted the science and used it to their advantage. The thoughts such as, care for the sick and needy led to the procreation of the less fit, gives a crazy outlook on behavior. The thought was brought up that the STATE should INTERVENE to modify human mating choices. The eugenics movement was born from these thoughts. This lead to some practiced in the United States such as compulsory sterilization and restriction of immigration.
Evolutionary Psycology thought that there was an environmental connection to evolutionary adaptiveness and that module-based capabilities in the brain evoled. Nearly all sociobiologist and evolutionary psychologists now assert the psychic unity of mankind, regaurdless of race or ancestry all human’s cognitive make up are the same, are not our of political correctness.
Evolutionary Pschology versus Human Behavioral Ecology/Sociobiology
What is the Modular Brain Concept? It is the differenct components of the brain deal with different specific functions, such as, vision, hearing, talking. Perceptual modules operate quickly, immune from interference by memory, experience or reflection.