Human Nature and Public Policy: An Evolutionary Approach

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Arguing for an evolutionary perspective, this text directly challenges the standard social science model (SSSM) on which public policy has often been based. The SSSM maintains that human behaviour is solely the product of culture and learning. In sharp contrast, the evolutionary model (EM) holds that our behaviour flows from the interaction between learning and culture, on the one hand, and biological factors - especially our evolutionary legacy - on the other. These different approaches to human behaviour understandably lead to divergent conceptions of sound domestic and foreign policy. The SSSM views human behaviour as essentially plastic and thus readily changed by governmental action. Disagreeing, the evolutionary model sees that malleability as seriously limited by our species’ evolved propensity for aggression, status seeking, xenophobia, ethnocentrism and hierarchical social structures.