Evolutionary psychology has a bad rap for a myriad of reasons. One of the most common arguments I am confronted with is the power of culture to modify behavior. People always try and say that the phenomenon we are discovering is actually culturally derived and that culture is the fundamental defining aspect of human psychology. One of my favorite counter arguments is to cite the research being done in mating strategies. These are highly refined mechanisms of mate choice that really have no cultural counter point. But I didn’t want to talk about cultural vs. evolutionary causes per se. I was thinking the other day that these same studies that I use in arguments with cultural determinist also need answering from anyone who believes in direct creation.
So lets try a relatively simple one to start off with:
Women's Preferences for Male Behavioral Displays Change Across the Menstrual Cycle. Gangestad, Steven W.; Simpson, Jeffry A.; Cousins, Alita J.; Psychological Science, Vol 15(3), May 2004. pp. 203-206.
This study is one that took place at my university last year, I am participating in a follow up study this year and basically what is being discovered is that there is a strong cycle effect on what women find attractive. During the peak fertility phase of the cycle women prefer men that have signals of high testosterone and symmetry. These can range from hormonal signals on the face, to shoulder to hip ratio, to behavioral traits like strong intra sexual competition. But they only prefer these men for short term mating prospects and not long-term partners. During extended periods of the cycle, or non-fertile points, women have a dislike for the above traits in men and prefer men that show signals of higher estrogen ratios. Add in one final ingredient that when women decide to cheat on a long term partner there is a very strong tendency for this to take place during the high fertility phase of the cycle and with these highly testosteronized males.
This behavior can fit very nicely with in an evolutionary frame work. Men with high testosterone have good genes (this is related to the fact that testosterone is an immuno suppressant so having the signals show you handicapped yourself and still perform well). But these men usually have more sexual partners and invest far less in women then their more estroginized cohorts. Women are faced with a difficult choice, sleep with men with good genes and get good genes for your children, but get little to no investment from the father. Get the much larger investment in your children from more estroginzed men but risk getting inferior genes. The above study shows that women have tried to get around this trade off by finding high investing males more attractive for long term relationships and finding good gene males attractive only during peak fertility points in the cycle, and only as short term mates. Basically try and get the good genes from one guy and get the good investment from the other.
There are many studies that show these results have a lot of robustness and there are many other mechanisms (such as scent preference across the cycle) that show that the cycle effect is very real. It’s not an experimental artifact. So evolution has their theory for the origin of cycle effects, what is the creationist theory? How does this sort of draconian fitness maximization tactic fit into special creation? I don’t see how this could really be blamed on the sin in general, it is all completely unconscious and operating at the most basic levels. With minimum hand waving and God/Satan dun its, do creationist have a way to explain this phenomenon?
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