CGSC 2002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Richard Lewontin, Mit Press, Limbic System
19 Mar 2018
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Document Summary
Believe that the mind is a product of evolution and we gain a better understanding of the mind by examining evolutionary pressures that shaped it. There are two types of questions in evolutionary approach: Proximate questions: concern with how a particular behaviour develops, what its neural or cognitive underpinnings are and whether it is acquired or innate. In cognitive science, evolutionary perspective is closely linked to research and ideas of leda cosmides and john tooby. The mind is a set of information-processing machines that were designed by natural selection to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter- gatherer ancestors. Five principles of the evolutionary approach to the study of the mind: Its circuits are designed to generate behavior that is appropriate to your environmental circumstances. Our neural circuits were designed by natural selection to solve problems that our ancestors faced during our species" evolutionary history. Our circuits weren"t designed to solve just any kind of problem.
