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1.3.20 Social Determinism and Biological Determinism
People who don’t understand what evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology are about fear they might be about biological determinism, the doctrine that your genes determine all of your abilities and behaviour, summoning ugly spectres of racism, eugenics, social Darwinism, and the like.
The scientific evidence does not support biological determinism, and no sane biologist embraces the concept. Its opposite, social determinism, the doctrine that society alone socially constructs all of your abilities and behaviour, also has no scientific support.
Evolutionary biology and psychology seek to understand what humans have in common as a species, not how we differ as individuals. This means taking into account the interactions between our biological adaptations and our cultural environment. Evolution by conventional Darwinian natural selection created humans and all other living things on earth, past and present. Therefore, genetically inherited predispositions influence human behaviour as much as learning and cultural influences. Both genes and culture matter.