Genetic Influences on Human Fertility and Sexuality: Commentary on Chapters 10–14

Abstract

As an evolutionary psychologist, my first reaction to these chapters was to be quite favorably impressed by the way that behavioral genetics, as exemplified by these works, has been incorporating the ideas of evolutionary psychology and fully integrating them into a truly synthetic biological perspective. Regrettably, my second reaction was to be chagrined over the relative unwillingness or inability of many of my fellow evolutionary psychologists to integrate behavioral genetic perspectives into their own ideas. Both of these reactions stem from my personal view that these approaches do not really represent two independent fields of study, but are instead two aspects of a single Darwinian behavioral science that is only now emerging the way that the original Neo-Darwinian Synthesis did over fUty years ago. I think that this is closer to the way that both Charles Darwin and our other common ancestor, Sir Francis Galton, envisioned the biological psychology of the future. Or, as my friend, colleague, and former graduate mentor, Lewis Petrinovich, once put it jestingly in private conversation: “We can have both a mean and a variance!”