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13 Misunderstandings about Natural Selection

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2158-2

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Thirteen Misunderstandings And yet, despite the simplicity of the core


About Natural Selection idea and its universal acceptance in the scientific
community (e.g., Pew Research Center 2015),
Laith Al-Shawaf1, Kareem Zreik2 and misunderstandings regarding natural selection
David M. Buss3 abound. Such misconceptions even appear in col-
1
Department of Psychology, University of lege textbooks and among students who have
Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO, USA taken college-level evolutionary biology courses
2
Department of Economics, Lebanese American (Alters and Nelson 2002; Gregory 2009; Nehm
University, Beirut, Lebanon and Reilly 2007; Nehm et al. 2008; Winegard
3
The University of Texas at Austin, et al. 2014). A review of ten textbooks in social
Austin, TX, USA psychology revealed at least one factual error
about inclusive fitness theory in each, and typi-
cally two to three (Park 2007). In this entry, we
Introduction briefly identify and dispel 13 of the most perva-
sive misunderstandings of evolutionary theory.
The theory of evolution by natural selection is the
unifying paradigm of biology and indeed of all the
life sciences – it explains and integrates a huge Misunderstanding 1: Natural Selection Is
diversity of known findings and predicts an aston- a Random, Chance-Driven Process
ishing number of new ones (Alcock 2009; Coyne
2009). It has been famously suggested that noth- Probably the most pervasive misunderstanding
ing in biology makes sense except in the light of about natural selection is that it is a chance
evolution (Dobzhansky 1973). Prominent philos- process.
opher Daniel Dennett has said “If I were to give an In simplified form, evolution takes place in two
award for the single best idea anyone ever had, I’d steps: mutation and natural selection (in reality,
give it to Darwin, ahead of even Newton and the process is more complicated than this). In the
Einstein and everyone else” (Dennett 1996, first step, random genetic mutations arise. These
p. 21). Indeed, scientists, historians of science, mutations may turn out to be beneficial, detrimen-
and philosophers of science generally regard evo- tal, or neutral. This step is random, involves no
lutionary theory as one of the most predictively foresight, and does not take into account what the
powerful and explanatorily successful theories in organism “needs” or would benefit from. Indeed,
the history of science (Alcock 2009; Coyne 2009; more mutations turn out to be detrimental than
Dawkins 2009; Dennett 1996). beneficial. In the second step, mutations with
# Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
T. K. Shackelford, V.A. Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2158-2
2 Thirteen Misunderstandings About Natural Selection

harmful effects on reproduction are filtered out by Misunderstanding 2: Natural Selection Is


natural selection, which acts like a sieve (Dawkins Primarily About Survival
1982). By contrast, those that have beneficial
effects on reproduction are more likely to be It is common to think of natural selection as being
passed on and increase in frequency over time. primarily about survival, but in truth, it is primar-
This second step is quintessentially non- ily about reproduction. Differential reproductive
random: some mutations make it past natural success – not survival – is the driving engine and
selection’s filter precisely because they are bene- the “bottom line” of evolution. It is possible to
ficial, and others fail to make it past the filter illustrate this point using both logic and empirical
precisely because they are harmful. This is the evidence.
opposite of randomness: it is an orderly and pre- To illustrate the point logically, imagine two
dictable process in which there is a logical con- genes, each of which has two distinct effects
nection between the effect a mutation has and its (these are called “pleiotropic effects”). Gene
likelihood of making it past the filter of natural A leads the animal in which it resides to live to
selection. By contrast, a random process would be be 100 years old, but makes it infertile. Gene
unpredictable and would have no systematic con- B leads the animal in which it resides to die at
nection between the effects of a mutation and its 25 years old, but after having had several off-
likelihood of making it into the next generation. spring. Which gene will have greater representa-
The problem seems to be that people some- tion in the next generation? The answer is that
times confuse mutation (which is random) with gene B will be well represented, whereas gene
natural selection (which is not random). To make A will be entirely absent. This thought experiment
matters worse, they may conflate one or both of helps to demonstrate that when the two conflict,
these processes with evolution, which is the out- reproduction trumps survival.
come of these processes (see Misunderstanding It is also possible to illustrate empirically that
#11 for more detail on the distinction between when survival and reproduction conflict, survival
evolution and natural selection). takes the backseat. Examples abound. The pea-
To avoid these errors, it helps to remember that cock’s tail is a massive burden to survival but is
natural selection is the nonrandom sorting of ran- crucial in seducing peahens (Darwin 1871; Cronin
domly mutated genes. Finally, because natural 1993). Human testosterone is a powerful immu-
selection is not random, the process it drives – nosuppressant but human females are attracted to
evolution – is also not random. testosterone-dependent traits such as a strong jaw-
The misunderstanding that natural selection is line and a high shoulder-to-hip ratio (Buss 2015;
a chance process is particularly pernicious Al-Shawaf & Lewis 2018). Male redback spiders
because of its downstream effects. It is nearly willingly offer themselves to their mates for
impossible that a random, chance-driven process cannibalization – they die, but in doing so, they
could explain the complexity, utility, and apparent double their paternity relative to noncannibalized
purposiveness of the adaptations we see in the males (Andrade 1996, 2003).
biological world. As a result, falling into the erro- In other words, when it comes to evolution,
neous belief that natural selection is a random reproduction is more important than survival.
process might lead some people to reject evolu- Many species take this to an extreme, living only
tion altogether on the basis of a conceptual long enough to reproduce and then dying imme-
mistake. diately thereafter. This is so common in nature that
the phenomenon has a recognized name –
semelparity – and examples of species that do it
Thirteen Misunderstandings About Natural Selection 3

range from desert agave plants to butterflies to selection” is a linguistic shorthand rather than a
bamboo plants to Pacific salmon (Quammen descriptively accurate term for the process that
1985). Perhaps even more morbid are those spe- drives evolutionary change.
cies that successfully reproduce – only to be
promptly devoured by their offspring. The matri-
cidal gall midge Miastor does this, producing Misunderstanding 4: Natural Selection Is
larvae that eat it alive from the inside out Teleological – It Is Working Toward a
(Quammen 1985). The key point is that in evolu- Goal or Final Purpose
tion, survival is important only insofar as it even-
tually leads to reproduction. Both logical thought Natural selection does not have a final goal or
experiments and an abundance of empirical exam- telos. It also has no foresight – in other words, it
ples illustrate that when survival and reproduction is impossible for natural selection to take into
conflict, it is invariably reproduction that wins account future conditions. Though the products
(Alcock 2009; Dawkins 1976; Hamilton 1964; of selection can be beautiful and complex, the
Williams 1966). process itself is blind and mechanistic.
For example, if a certain species of mammal
would benefit from evolving a slightly thicker
Misunderstanding 3: “Natural Selection” coat of fur, this does not mean that natural selec-
Refers to an Agent That Actively tion will guide it toward that goal. First, a benefi-
“Selects” the Best Organisms for the cial mutation must arise that contributes to said
Next Generation trait. This stage of the process is entirely random
and is not affected by what the animal “needs” or
“Natural selection” is an unfortunate misnomer. It would benefit from. In fact, harmful mutations are
gives the impression that some kind of causal much more common than beneficial mutations
agent is actively “selecting” traits for inclusion (because there are many more ways to disrupt a
in the next generation. Nothing could be further functioning biological machine than to improve
from the truth: there is no agent and there is no it). Second, if the new mutation happens to confer
selection. Stated differently, there is no guiding a survival or reproductive advantage, natural
hand in the process of natural selection – the selection will favor it, and it will tend to increase
process is blind, mechanistic, and passive. in frequency as the generations pass. But it is
“Differential reproductive success by virtue of impossible for natural selection to anticipate
heritable differences in design” is a much more future needs and lead species toward a distant
accurate description of the process: some organ- goal state, as natural selection cannot look ahead
isms reproduce more than others, and this simple and does not have goals.
fact is the key driver of evolution by natural selec- Nor does natural selection inevitably lead to
tion. But because “differential reproductive suc- “progress” in the sense of greater intelligence or
cess” is a mouthful, scientists and laypeople alike greater complexity. A common misconception is
often use “natural selection” as shorthand. That is to think of evolution as progressive – always
perfectly fine as far as it goes, but it is helpful to improving or moving toward greater complexity.
remember that this is just shorthand for a longer In reality, there is no predetermined direction to
and more cumbersome phrase. evolution. Natural selection can easily cause a
In sum, “differential reproductive success” is a species to lose complexity when the environment
little wordy, but it is more accurate in that it demands it (see e.g., Misunderstanding #6 and
(a) describes what is actually occurring, (b) does Al-Shawaf and Zreik 2017). For example, several
not suggest the presence of a hidden causal agent, species have slowly evolved to lose their sight
and (c) does not misleadingly imply some form of after moving into pitch-black caves. Since sight
active selection. It may therefore be beneficial for is no longer useful in such an environment, natural
readers and writers to bear in mind that “natural selection led these species to lose their vision and
4 Thirteen Misunderstandings About Natural Selection

channel the metabolic resources previously used which have in turn led to thousands of empirical
for sight to other physiological needs such as studies. This suggests that, unlike genic-level and
immune function or cell repair. individual-level thinking, group selectionist
Natural selection is a tinkerer, not an engineer thinking may not be especially generative or fruit-
(Jacob 1977). An engineer can look ahead to her ful as a scientific theory (Alcock 2017).
final goal and implement changes that help her get An important sidenote is worth mentioning:
closer to that final goal. She can also return to the even if group selection turns out to be more wide-
drawing board any time she pleases to fix a mis- spread in nature than we previously thought, it
take. By contrast, natural selection cannot look would still not be the case that adaptations evolve
ahead, has no goal, and can only build adaptations for the good of the species. Even dyed-in-the-
based on the genetic variants already available in wool group selectionists are primarily focused
the population at the time. In short, natural selec- on small, local groups – not whole species. It is
tion has no telos or endgame. therefore incorrect, for example, to think we have
sex “to perpetuate the species”. We have sex
because we are the descendants of ancestors
Misunderstanding 5: Natural Selection whose sex led to reproduction, and so we inherited
Favors the Survival of The Species their tendency for sexual motivation. An inciden-
tal side effect of this is that the species as a whole
One of the most common misconceptions about may sometimes benefit. Outcomes that are bene-
evolution is that natural selection favors the sur- ficial to groups can indeed occur, but they are not
vival of the species. In reality, natural selection the proper biological function of adaptations, they
works primarily at the level of the gene and the are incidental side effects.
individual bodies in which genes reside – not at
the level of groups, subspecies, or species
(Hamilton 1964; Williams 1966). Misunderstanding 6: Natural Selection
George Williams, one of the most important Builds Perfectly Designed Biological
evolutionary biologists of the twentieth century, Mechanisms
showed several decades ago that group selection
is theoretically possible – but likely to be There are several constraints that limit
extremely rare in nature. For group selection to natural selection’s ability to craft optimally
work, several preconditions must be in place – and designed mechanisms. These include (a) time
these preconditions are themselves very rarely lags, (b) historical constraints, (c) constraints due
met in nature (Williams 1966). Recent years to available genetic variation, (d) unavoidable
have witnessed a resurgence of interest in group trade-offs, (e) imperfections at one level due to
selection (e.g., Wilson and Sober 1994; Henrich selection at a different level, (f) mistakes due
2004), but most evolutionary biologists and psy- to environmental unpredictability, and (g) antag-
chologists agree on the following: (1) group selec- onistic pleiotropy (Al-Shawaf and Zreik 2017;
tion is theoretically possible, but (2) genic-level Dawkins 1999). We highlight only three of these
and individual-level selection are considerably in this entry: time lags, historical constraints, and
stronger than group-level selection, (3) there is unavoidable trade-offs (for a more thorough dis-
no clear empirical evidence that group selection cussion, see Al-Shawaf and Zreik 2017).
applies to humans, and (4) group selectionist Time lags refer to the fact that natural selection
thinking does not appear to have led to any test- is a slow and gradual process. Animals are
able new hypotheses (Delton et al. 2011; Krasnow adapted to past environments, not current envi-
et al. 2012, 2015, 2016; Krasnow and Delton ronments (Dawkins 1999). If the environment
2012; Pinker 2012). By contrast, orthodox genic- changes rapidly, natural selection may be too
level and individual-level selectionist thinking slow to catch up. For example, human taste pref-
have led to many hundreds of testable hypotheses, erences for fat, sugar, and calorie-dense foods
Thirteen Misunderstandings About Natural Selection 5

were adaptive when food was scarce during the engineers are studying them in an attempt to rep-
evolution of our species. By contrast, in today’s licate their structure and function in artificial sys-
world of cheap and ubiquitous fast food, these tems (e.g., the luminescence of fireflies, the sonar
same taste preferences lead to obesity, type II of bats, and the adhesive abilities of geckos;
diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases (Buss Bhushan 2009; Kim et al. 2012; Murr 2015).
2015). The environment has changed too quickly Nonetheless, despite these impressive feats, the
for the slow, cumulative process of evolution to constraints on natural selection limit its ability to
catch up. Time lags have rendered our previously craft truly optimal biological mechanisms.
adaptive taste preferences maladaptive.
A second important constraint on natural selec-
tion comes from a species’ evolutionary history. Misunderstanding 7: Evolution Implies
Once a species has evolved a certain nervous Genetic Determinism
system or body plan, this constrains what it is
capable of evolving next. Given their current One of the most widespread misunderstandings is
body plan, it would be difficult or impossible for that evolution implies genetic determinism. That
elephants to now begin to evolve wings, say, or an is, many are under the impression that naturally
exoskeleton. Once a species finds itself on a cer- selected behaviors or psychological mechanisms
tain evolutionary trajectory, this limits where it are genetically determined – that the claim “X is a
can go next. In other words, the phylogenetic product of natural selection” is equivalent to the
background of a species affects what it is capable claim “X is genetically determined.” It is
of evolving next – history constrains evolution. emphatically not.
Unavoidable trade-offs impose a third con- First, evolution by natural selection is an envi-
straint on natural selection. Gazelles under preda- ronmentally driven process, and it would not exist
tion pressure from wolves may evolve longer legs, at all without the environment. Adaptations (the
enabling them to run faster and increasing their products of natural selection) require environmen-
likelihood of escape. But longer leg bones are tal input at every stage of their emergence:
more brittle and more likely to break. The gazelles (a) initial evolution, (b) ontogenetic development,
therefore face an unavoidable trade-off: longer, and (c) immediate activation (Buss 1995). Stated
more gracile bones with enhanced capacity to differently, adaptations only evolve in the first
flee but increased likelihood of breaking, or place because of an environmental challenge,
shorter, more robust bones with a lower likelihood often referred to as an “adaptive problem” (Buss
of escape. The key point is that every adaptation 1995; Tooby and Cosmides 1992). Subsequently,
comes with a cost, and this leads to unavoidable adaptations require environmental input for their
trade-offs. Trade-offs, in turn, make it impossible proper development during an organism’s
to optimize every parameter simultaneously. lifespan. And finally, adaptations require environ-
These constraints, along with several others, mental input for their immediate activation in the
make it impossible for natural selection to build present. This means that the environment is cru-
perfectly designed biological mechanisms (see cial to every product of evolution at every stage of
Al-Shawaf and Zreik 2017; Dawkins 1999, for the evolutionary process.
an extended treatment of the constraints on natural The second problem with the idea that natural
selection). It is because of these constraints on selection implies genetic determinism has to do
natural selection that we are left with suboptimal with the fact that nothing is determined by genes
designs such as the vertebrate eye (which has a or environment alone. Genes and environment,
blind spot) and the human esophagus and trachea working together, jointly codetermine every
(whose inelegant setup poses a serious choking aspect of an organism – from its ears to its per-
hazard). Natural selection can build complex and sonality. Neither genes nor environment is capa-
functional mechanisms. It can even build mecha- ble of doing this alone. After all, genes are like a
nisms so sophisticated and impressive that recipe for making a body, and environmental
6 Thirteen Misunderstandings About Natural Selection

input is like the raw ingredients. The ingredients morphology to its behavior. For both of these
alone are impotent, and the recipe alone is equally reasons, it is wrong to think that evolution bears
impotent (e.g., Dawkins 1976; Ridley 2003). As any relationship to genetic determinism.
such, no credible scientist thinks the products of
evolution are genetically determined, and the
claim that a psychological mechanism is a product Misunderstanding 8: Adaptations Must
of natural selection is not in any way equivalent to Be Present at Birth (or Must Emerge Very
the claim that it is genetically determined. Early in Life)
It might be worth adding here that the often-
misunderstood concept of heritability (percentage An odd but widespread assumption is that
of variance in a phenotypic trait due to genetics) adaptations – the products of natural selection –
does not refer to a single individual; it refers to must be present at birth or must emerge very early
how much of the differences between individuals in life. Features not present early in life are auto-
are due to differences in their genes as opposed to matically assumed to be “learned,” not the product
differences in their environments. For example, if of natural selection. One key problem with this
the personality trait of extraversion has a herita- line of reasoning is that it mistakenly pits learning
bility of 60%, this does not mean that Bob’s extra- and evolution against each other as if they are
version is 60% due to his genes and 40% due to competing explanations, when in fact they are
his environment. Instead, it means that 60% of the not (for an extended discussion of the compatibil-
differences between individuals in their extraver- ity between learning and evolution, see e.g.,
sion is due to differences in their genes, and 40% Al-Shawaf et al. 2018; Lewis et al. 2017; Symons
is due to differences in their environments. For a 1979; Tinbergen 1963). The other key problem is
single organism, every single trait is jointly that there is simply no basis for the arbitrary
codetermined by genes and environment. This assumption that the products of natural selection
even includes traits with 0% heritability or 100% must be present at birth.
heritability – there is simply no other way to build Teeth and breasts illustrate what is wrong with
an organism. Stated differently, we must distin- this principle: they are both adaptations par excel-
guish between two levels of analysis: the individ- lence, but they are not present at birth. Instead,
ual level (in which we are concerned with they emerge at the appropriate developmental
individual organisms) and the population level stage of the organism’s life. Natural selection
(in which we are concerned with the differences builds adaptations that emerge at the correct
between organisms). Partitioning an outcome like point in ontogenetic development, not adaptations
height, IQ, or extraversion into percent due to that are necessarily present at the moment a baby
genes and percent due to environment is mean- is born. Teeth and breasts (and pubic hair and
ingful at the population level of analysis but facial hair, etc.) emerge later, when they are
meaningless at the individual level of analysis. needed, during the appropriate life stage. The
A quip by Donald Hebb illustrates this point same goes for walking and bipedalism: newborn
well: when asked whether nature or nurture infants cannot walk, but nobody doubts that
makes a greater contribution to personality, he bipedalism is a biological adaptation. Similarly,
replied, “Well, which contributes more to a nobody doubts that flight or vision are exquisite
rectangle’s area – its length or its width?” biological adaptations, despite the fact that many
(Meaney 2001). newly hatched bird offspring can do neither.
In sum, there are two key points about the In sum, adaptations – the products of natural
relationship between evolution, genes, and envi- selection – can “come online” during the prenatal
ronment. First, environmental input is essential to phase, shortly after birth, or much later in life.
the emergence and activation of all evolved mech- There is no theoretically principled reason to stip-
anisms. Second, genes and environment jointly ulate that they must be present at birth. That is not
codetermine everything from an organism’s how natural selection works – it works to produce
Thirteen Misunderstandings About Natural Selection 7

adaptations that come online during the develop- decision rules, and outputs involved in an unde-
mental phase in which they are needed, not ones sirable outcome will we have the information
that are present at a particular arbitrarily selected necessary to try to change it.
moment.

Misunderstanding 10: You Can Use the


Misunderstanding 9: The Products of Principles of Natural Selection to Bypass
Evolved Mechanisms Are Fixed and the Psychological Level of Analysis and
Unchangeable Predict Behavior Directly

A key misconception is that if a certain behavior is It is common to think – especially among evolu-
the output of a mechanism built by natural selec- tionists who do not have a background in
tion, it is fixed and unchangeable. For example, psychology – that there is nothing wrong with
people worry that if there is evidence of an evo- going directly from the principles of natural selec-
lutionary basis for aggression, warfare, or sexual tion to predictions about behavior, skipping the
infidelity, this somehow means that these undesir- psychological or information-processing level of
able outcomes are inevitable. analysis. But skipping the level of psychological
In reality, evolved mechanisms are flexible and adaptations – the information-processing machin-
their outcomes are rarely fixed. All evolved mech- ery built by natural selection – can lead one astray
anisms require environmental input. Often, (Cosmides and Tooby 1987).
changing the input is enough to change the output. Consider incest aversion. Studies suggest that
For example, all humans have callus-producing the mind uses a few key cues during childhood to
mechanisms in their hands. These evolved physi- tag individuals as siblings, marking them as
ological mechanisms are designed to produce cal- unsuitable sexual partners. Chief among these
luses in response to repeated friction of the skin. are childhood co-residence (years spent growing
But this does not mean that the outcome – up with the other child in the same house) and
calluses – is unavoidable: simply remove the fric- maternal perinatal association (if you are the older
tion by wearing gloves, and these mechanisms sibling, observing your mother breastfeeding the
will no longer produce calluses. By modifying other child). The human mind uses these two key
the input, you have successfully changed the out- informational inputs to tag someone as a sibling
put (Buss 2015). and consequently produces incest aversion at the
Behaviors produced by natural selection are no thought of having sex with them. Normally, sib-
more fixed or set in stone than calluses. Indeed, lings encounter these cues during childhood and
evolved psychological mechanisms are exqui- nonsiblings do not. But sometimes there is a
sitely context-dependent and environmentally mismatch – and these mismatches are revealing.
sensitive (see Al-Shawaf et al. 2018, for an For instance, in the phenomenon of Taiwanese
extended treatment of the centrality of context in minor marriages, a young female child is
evolutionary psychology). Even if socially unde- betrothed to a young male child, and they are
sirable behaviors such as aggression, warfare, or both raised by the boy’s parents in the boy’s
romantic infidelity have an evolutionary basis, parents’ house. Because they grow up together
this does not mean that we are stuck with them in the same household (childhood co-residence),
forever. Indeed, a wealth of evidence shows that their brains mistakenly tag each other as siblings,
war, violence, and other forms of aggression have producing incest aversion. As a consequence, the
been steadily declining throughout human history individuals involved in Taiwanese minor mar-
(Pinker 2011). In fact, our best chance of changing riages report less sexual interest in one another,
or eliminating socially undesirable behaviors will lower fertility rates, lower relationship satisfac-
come from understanding them more deeply. tion, and higher divorce rates (Lieberman et al.
Only when we understand the inputs, evolved 2007; Lieberman and Symons 1998). In essence,
8 Thirteen Misunderstandings About Natural Selection

the mind mistakenly coded a nonrelative as a captures its evolved function, you need to think of
sibling because it received the key informational it as composed of programs that process informa-
input of childhood co-residence (Lieberman et al. tion” (Tooby and Cosmides 2005, pp. 16–17). In
2003, 2007). short, if you want to maximize the accuracy of
This process can fail in the opposite way, too: your evolution-based predictions and explana-
genetic siblings who do not receive the key infor- tions, you would do well not to skip the
mational inputs of childhood co-residence and information-processing level of analysis.
maternal perinatal association may fail to psycho-
logically tag each other as siblings, leaving open
the possibility of being sexually attracted to each Misunderstanding 11: Natural Selection
other later in life. This is exactly what happened to Is the Only Driver of Evolutionary
some siblings who were separated at birth, grew Change
up apart, and later in life found each other and fell
in love (Childs 1998). This outcome makes no Another important misconception is that natural
sense unless you take into account the selection is the only driver of evolutionary change.
information-processing level of analysis. If you A variant of this misunderstanding is the erroneous
attempt to go directly from the principles of natu- belief that the terms “evolution” and “natural
ral selection to behavior, the phenomenon appears selection” are more or less interchangeable.
incomprehensible – they are genetic siblings, so In reality, evolution is the outcome, and there
why are they sexually attracted to each other? By are four evolutionary forces that drive it: muta-
contrast, if you do not skip the information- tion, genetic drift, gene flow, and natural selection
processing level of analysis, the difficulty imme- (e.g., Futuyma and Kirkpatrick 2017). Mutation is
diately disappears: these siblings were reared a random heritable change in a gene or chromo-
apart, so their minds did not receive the key infor- some and constitutes part of the raw material on
mational inputs needed to produce incest aver- which natural selection works. Genetic drift is the
sion. That is why they are capable of being random, chance-driven change in allele frequency
sexually attracted to one another. from one generation to the next. Gene flow, some-
In short, if you leapfrog the psychological level times called admixture or migration, is the move-
of analysis and attempt to go directly from the ment of genes from one population to another.
principles of natural selection to statements Natural selection, the fourth evolutionary force
about behavior, you will make mistakes in both and the subject of this entry, is most accurately
prediction and explanation (Cosmides and Tooby described as nonrandom differential reproductive
1987). This brings to mind two quotes from foun- success (see Misunderstandings #1 and #2).
dational evolutionary thinkers, one by Donald To be clear, while natural selection is not the
Symons and the other by John Tooby and Leda only driver of evolutionary change, it is a key
Cosmides. To paraphrase Don Symons, the evo- one – and most scientists agree that it is the most
lutionist should focus on psychology and infor- important one (Alcock 2009; Dawkins 1976;
mation processing. When he ignores these in Dennett 1996; Williams 1966). It is also the only
favor of observable behavior, he is like the drunk evolutionary force capable of fashioning adapta-
looking for his key under the lamppost: he knows tions or creating the appearance of design, the
he dropped it in the dark, but under the lamppost explication of which is the central explanatory
the light is better (Symons 1979). task of evolutionary biology (Darwin 1859;
And as Tooby and Cosmides wrote so elo- Williams 1966).
quently, “The fact that the brain processes infor- This is an important point: while there are four
mation is not an accidental side effect of some different evolutionary forces, only one of them –
metabolic process. The brain was designed by natural selection – can create adaptations designed
natural selection to be a computer. Therefore, if to solve environmental problems. The other three
you want to describe its operation in a way that forces can cause evolution – defined as a change
Thirteen Misunderstandings About Natural Selection 9

in allele frequencies in a population over time – testable predictions, the charge falls flat.
but only natural selection can fashion complex A cursory look at published evolutionary psycho-
specialized mechanisms like the porcupine’s logical papers makes it clear that most evolution-
quills, the turtle’s shell, or the angler fish’s bait, ary psychological hypotheses are not open to this
all exquisitely designed to solve key environmen- accusation, either because they used the top-down
tal problems in these animals’ lives. approach to generate a priori predictions (e.g., see
In sum, natural selection is only one of four Al-Shawaf 2016), or because they used the
evolutionary forces, but it is the only one capable bottom-up approach but subsequently generated
of fashioning adaptations. and tested novel predictions.
A concrete way of remedying the confusion
here is simply to list examples where an evolu-
Misunderstanding 12: Evolutionary tionary approach started from theory, generated
Hypotheses Are Primarily Post-Hoc novel hypotheses, and then used those hypotheses
Storytelling – Also Known as “Just-So” to derive new predictions which were subse-
Stories quently tested in the lab and the field. There are
literally hundreds of such examples, and many of
One of the most widespread misunderstandings of them have been included in easy-to-read tables in
evolutionary science – and of evolutionary psy- previous journal articles. We therefore do not rep-
chology in particular – is that evolutionary licate them here but instead direct the reader to
hypotheses are post-hoc storytelling, also known three articles where they can find plenty of such
as “just-so stories” (Gould and Lewontin 1979). examples – as well as much more detailed discus-
Nothing could be further from the truth. There are sions of why evolutionary hypotheses are emi-
two ways to appreciate why this is a mistake. nently falsifiable. Key papers that include such
First, as in all sciences, evolutionary psychol- tables and discussion are Buss et al. (1998),
ogists can proceed in two ways: using the top- Ketelaar and Ellis (2000), and Lewis et al. (2017).
down or bottom-up approach. In the top-down The underlying mistake seems to be thinking
approach to science, researchers generate hypoth- that if a discipline is partly historical in nature
eses and predictions directly from theory and sub- (as are the evolutionary sciences), that makes the
sequently go out and test their hypotheses. Since discipline unfalsifiable and prone to just-so story-
hypotheses and predictions in this approach are telling. But if that were the case, all disciplines
made a priori on the basis of theory, it is impos- with a historical component – including, for
sible for the top-down approach to be open to the example, astrophysics, cosmology, and geology –
charge of just-so storytelling. would be exercises in just-so storytelling. This is
By contrast, in the bottom-up approach, obviously incorrect. Whether or not a scientific
researchers first make an observation, and then discipline includes a historical component is not
generate a hypothesis to explain why that obser- relevant in differentiating good science from just-
vation might have occurred. This approach to so storytelling. What is relevant is whether the
science is potentially open to the charge of post- scientists in a given discipline – regardless of
hoc storytelling, but only if the researcher stops whether that discipline includes a historical
after generating a hypothesis and fails to derive or component – use their hypotheses to generate
test any new predictions from that hypothesis. novel predictions that can be tested in the present
Whether or not a proposed explanation counts as day. If they skip this crucial step, they may be
just-so storytelling depends entirely on this last engaged in just-so storytelling. By contrast, if they
step: if the researcher in question simply chooses use their hypotheses to generate and test novel
to believe her hypothesis without generating and predictions about previously unobserved phe-
testing any novel predictions, then she is guilty of nomena, they are engaged in normal, productive
just-so storytelling. If, by contrast, the researcher science. It is the latter that characterizes most
uses the proposed hypothesis to generate novel, evolutionary psychological research (for full
10 Thirteen Misunderstandings About Natural Selection

discussions, see Buss et al. 1998; Confer et al. reproductive success. Indeed, not only are humans
2010; Ketelaar and Ellis 2000; Lewis et al. 2017). still evolving, but the pace of our evolution has
sped up over the last 10,000 years (Cochran and
Harpending 2009).
Misunderstanding 13: Natural Selection Third, it is important to remember that there are
Has Stopped for Our Species, So Humans three prerequisites for evolution: (1) variation
Are No Longer Evolving (organisms in a population vary), (2) inheritance
(some of this variation is passed on to offspring),
The thirteenth misconception is that humans have and (3) differential reproductive success (as a
stopped evolving because natural selection has result, some of these organisms reproduce more
ceased operating on our species. This erroneous than others). As long as ingredient #3 (differential
line of reasoning points out that we have eradi- reproductive success) still obtains, natural selec-
cated many diseases, and that modern medicine tion is still operating. And as long as all three
keeps humans alive when they would have surely prerequisites are still in place – as is the case
died in ancestral populations. There are at least among humans – evolution is still occurring. Con-
three reasons why this does not warrant the con- sequently, humans are still evolving, and will be
clusion that humans have stopped evolving. for the foreseeable future.
First, we have not eradicated all diseases. Peo-
ple still die of cardiovascular problems, sexually
transmitted diseases, respiratory diseases, cancer, Conclusion
and plenty of other illnesses. Every year, about
800,000 children die from diarrhea-related prob- The theory of evolution by natural selection is
lems alone (Center for Disease Control and regarded by scientists as one of the most parsimo-
Prevention 2015). It is true that WEIRD societies nious, explanatorily successful, and predictively
(Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and powerful theories in the history of science
Democratic; Henrich et al. 2010) have made (Alcock 2009; Coyne 2009; Dawkins 2009;
great medical progress, but as a species, we are Dennett 1996; Dobzhansky 1973). Its parsimony
far from having eradicated all sources of death and and simplicity suggest that it should not be diffi-
disease. The vast majority of the world still suffers cult to understand, but misconceptions still
from many illnesses, some of which are fatal. And abound, even among scientists. There are likely
of course this is to say nothing of warfare, homi- several reasons for this, including insufficient
cide, and other causes of death. educational exposure to the principles and find-
Second, even if we had eradicated all sources ings of evolutionary biology as well as social and
of disease, this would not imply the cessation of ideological biases that serve as impediments to
evolution. Recall that it is differential reproduc- understanding (e.g., Von Hippel and Buss 2017).
tion, not survival, that is the bottom line of evolu- Ironically, some of these errors may also be rooted
tion (see Misunderstanding #2). As long as some in the fact that our evolved cognitive systems
humans are still reproducing more than others, make it difficult for us to understand evolution
natural selection is still operating. This means correctly (e.g., Evans and Lane 2011; Legare
that, putting survival aside, there are plenty of et al. 2013; Shtulman and Schulz 2008).
sources of selection still operating on our species: This entry has tackled what we see as the
mate competition, mate selection, mate retention, 13 most important misunderstandings about evo-
romantic infidelity, childrearing, investment in lution and natural selection (see Table 1). This list
genetic relatives, grandparenting, altruism, social is not exhaustive. For example, due to space con-
betrayal, free-riding, status hierarchy negotiation, siderations, we were unable to discuss such mis-
and more. Eradicating disease does not remove understandings as the notion that something is
important selection pressures related to social pro- good because it is natural, the intuition that natural
cesses, mating processes, and differential selection must always lead to change, or the idea
Thirteen Misunderstandings About Natural Selection 11

Thirteen Misunderstandings About Natural Selection, Table 1 Misunderstandings about natural selection vs.
accurate alternatives
Misconception Accurate alternative
Natural selection is random and so Mutation is random, natural selection is nonrandom, and as a consequence,
is evolution evolution is also nonrandom
Survival is the bottom line of Differential reproduction is the bottom line of evolution by natural selection.
evolution by natural selection Survival is tributary to reproduction, and when the two conflict, reproduction
trumps survival
There is an agent doing the There is no agent and no active “selection”. The process is blind and passive, and a
“selecting” in natural selection more accurate term for natural selection would be “differential reproductive
success”
Evolution is teleological – the Evolution is not teleological and has no final goal, endgame, or telos. Natural
process has a final goal, endgame, selection is blind and cannot peer into the future
or telos
Evolution favors the “survival of Most evolutionists agree that group selection is a much weaker force than genic-
the species” level and individual-level selection. Adaptations do not routinely evolve to benefit
groups, and the survival of species is not a goal of evolution
Natural selection builds perfectly Natural selection builds functional mechanisms that are often impressive but are
designed biological mechanisms nonetheless suboptimal. This is because there are several unavoidable constraints
on the power of selection (e.g., time lags and trade-offs)
Evolution implies genetic Evolution does not imply genetic determinism. An evolutionary perspective
determinism highlights the centrality of the environment at every stage: the initial evolution of
adaptations, their ontogenetic development, and their immediate activation in the
present
Adaptations must be present at Natural selection builds adaptations that “come online” at the appropriate
birth (or must develop very early developmental stage of life, not adaptations that are necessarily present at birth.
in life) Teeth and breasts illustrate this principle
The products or outputs of Evolved mechanisms are flexible. Because environmental input is crucial to the
adaptations are fixed and products of adaptations, it is often possible to change the output by simply
unchangeable modifying the input (e.g., calluses)
You can use the principles of Information processing is the key intervening step between the principles of
evolution to predict behavior evolution and predictions about behavior. Skipping this step can lead to errors in
directly, bypassing psychological both prediction and explanation
adaptations
Natural selection is the only driver There are four drivers of evolutionary change: mutation, migration, genetic drift,
of evolutionary change and natural selection. Natural selection is very important, and it is the only viable
explanation for the structure and function of adaptations, but it is only one of four
drivers of evolutionary change
Evolutionary hypotheses are Most evolutionary hypotheses are eminently falsifiable. When researchers use the
inherently unfalsifiable “just-so” top-down approach to generate a priori predictions, the “just-so” charge falls flat.
stories When researchers use the bottom-up, observation-driven approach, whether the
charge falls flat depends on whether the researchers use their hypotheses to
generate novel, testable predictions. For an extended discussion, see Buss et al.
1998; Confer et al. 2010; Ketelaar & Ellis 2000; Lewis et al. 2017
Humans have stopped evolving Humans are still evolving and natural selection is still ongoing in our species. We
because natural selection has have not eradicated all sources of death and disease – and even if we had, the
ceased for our species bottom line of evolution is differential reproduction, not survival. As long as some
humans still reproduce more than others, natural selection is still ongoing in our
species

that evolution is “just a theory” (e.g., Dawkins accurate understanding of natural selection. We
2009). Nevertheless, we have attempted to clear hope this entry helps readers to avoid these
away the most common impediments to an
12 Thirteen Misunderstandings About Natural Selection

misunderstandings and to think about the process Buss, D. M. (2015). Evolutionary psychology: The new
of evolution in a rigorous and clear-headed science of the mind. New York: Routledge.
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