My article with Pete Richerson has been published online at the Journal of Bioeconomics. The paper reviews current approaches to applying evolutionary theory to human behaviour, with a particular focus on the comparison between evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution theory. We examine questions such as ‘do human beings exhibit maladaptive behaviour in modern environments’ and ‘what is the evolved function of cognition and culture’, and we discuss human cooperation as an example of where explanations from these different perspectives diverge.
Brown, GR and Richerson, P. 2013. Applying evolutionary theory to human behaviour: past differences and current debates. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10818-013-9166-4