A little history of Darwinian history

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/29871/1/0000220.pd

A Not So Perfect Peace: A History Of Conflict On Ifaluk

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110749/1/ocea01597.pd

Parental investment by sex on ifaluk

Trivers and Willard (Science 179;90-92, 1973) predict that where investment by parents in good condition increases the fitness of sons more than that of their sisters, while the opposite is true of parents in poor condition, parents with much to invest will favor sons, while those with little will favor daughters. Patterns of parent-child association on Ifaluk atoll are consistent with this prediction.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/26325/1/0000412.pd

Roman monogamy

Mating in Rome was polygynous; marriage was monogamous. In the years 18 and 9 the first Roman emperor, Augustus, backed the lex Julia and the lex Papia Poppaea, his "moral" legislation. It rewarded members of the senatorial aristocracy who married and had children; and it punished celibacy and childlessness, which were common. To many historians, that suggests Romans were reluctant to reproduce. To me, it suggests they kept the number of their legitimate children small to keep the number of their illegitimate children large. Marriage in Rome shares these features with marriage in other empires with highly polygynous mating: inheritances were raised by inbreeding; relatedness to heirs was raised by marrying virgins, praising and enforcing chastity in married women, and discouraging widow remarriage; heirs were limited-- and inheritances concentrated--by monogamous marriage, patriliny, and primogeniture; and back-up heirs were got by divorce and remarriage, concubinage, and adoption. The "moral" legislation interfered with each of these. Among other things, it diverted inheritances by making widows remarry; it lowered relatedness to heirs by making adultery subject to public, rather than private, sanctions; and it dispersed estates by making younger sons and daughters take legitimate spouses and make legitimate heirs. Augustus' "moral" legislation, like canon law in Europe later on, was not, as it first appears, an act of reproductive altruism. It was, in fact, a form of reproductive competition.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/29876/1/0000226.pd

Biology and law

The terms "biology" and "biological" are widely used in ways that confuse and denigrate possible contributions of biologists to human self-understanding. As with social scientists, biologists deal with learning, developmental plasticity, and strategizing in virtually all species they study. It is from theories about how human strategizing is molded by selection that biologists can contribute to understanding topics like law.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/26363/1/0000450.pd

Childhood adversity, attachment security, and adult relationships: A preliminary study

Several evolutionary theorists have linked early rearing context to later reproductive strategy, hypothesizing that strategies differentiate during development as functional responses to ecological characteristics, by individuals or through parental manipulation. Attachment security has been proposed as a mediator. In this study, 40 young adults were given a multidimensional assessment, including the Hazen and Shaver Adult Attachment Questionnaire. Twenty-four subjects were classified as having secure attachment styles, 16 as nonsecure. The magnitude and predictability of parental investment during childhood was classified as lower if there was a brief intersibling interval, parental divorce, fewer economic resources, or less nurturing parents (i.e., more childhood adversity). Several such indicators were present for 17 people, 12 of whom were nonsecure, compared to only 4 of the 23 others. The nonsecurely attached subjects were less likely to have attained enduring marriages. The 6/16 nonsecure who had a marriage or cohabitation began them at a younger age and after a shorter courtship period than did the 15/24 secure with such relationships. Separations or divorces had already occurred in the relationships of 4/6 nonsecure versus 5/15 secure. Attachment security was associated with childhood adversity and adult relationships for both men and women, when analyzed separately. A retrospective study cannot address cause and effect, because poor adult relationship outcomes might bias recall of parental behavior. However, results are consistent with theories that unpredictable early environments foster short-term rather than long-term mating strategies, possibly through affecting attachment styles.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31362/1/0000274.pd

Roman polygyny

Marriage in Rome was monogamous; mating was polygynous. Powerful men in the Roman empire, as in other empires, probably had sex with more women. To make that case I look, first, at the Latin sources. Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio suggest that Roman emperors, like other emperors, were promiscuous; that they had privileged access to other men's women; and that they sometimes had women procured for them. I look next at the modern studies. Literary, legal, and inscriptional data suggest that Roman men kept as many slaves as they could afford--often hundreds and sometimes thousands; that many of those slaves were women; and that slave women were often bought as breeders. They also suggest that masters, who had unrestricted sexual access to their slaves, were often the fathers. Some slave women's children were brought up with, and in the style of, legitimate children; they were freed young; and they were given wealth, position, and paternal affection.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/29873/1/0000222.pd

Culture theory: The developing synthesis from biology

We believe that a useful, complete theory of culture is simpler than the dichotomies promoted by the coevolutionary approach suggest. Culture can be regarded as an aspect of the environment into which each human is born and must succeed or fail, developed gradually by the succession of humans who have lived throughout history. We hypothesize that culture results from the inclusive-fitness-maximizing efforts of all humans who have lived. We think the evidence suggests that cultural traits are, in general, vehicles of genic survival, and that the heritability of cultural traits depends on the judgments (conscious and unconscious) of individuals with regard to their effects on the individual's inclusive fitness.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44477/1/10745_2005_Article_BF01531192.pd