Eckart Voland

Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen | JLU · Institut für Philosophie

To address claims of human exceptionalism, we determine where humans fit within the greater mammalian distribution of reproductive inequality. We show that humans exhibit lower reproductive skew (i.e., inequality in the number of surviving offspring) among males and smaller sex differences in reproductive skew than most other mammals, while neverth...

Historically, mothers producing twins gave birth, on average, more often than non-twinners. This observation has been interpreted as twinners having higher intrinsic fertility – a tendency to conceive easily irrespective of age and other factors – which has shaped both hypotheses about why twinning persists and varies across populations, and the de...

Alterungsprozesse sind in der Natur keineswegs so selbstverständlich, wie es angesichts unserer eigenen Lebenserfahrung erscheinen mag. Einzeller und Bakterien gelten als potentiell unsterblich, ebenso wie der Süßwasserpolyp Hydra. Diesen Organismen ist gemein, dass sie sich durch somatische Zellteilung fortpflanzen, also nicht die Differenzierung...

Eine zentrale Argumentationslinie von Meisselbach (2018) aufgreifend und ausbauend wird gezeigt, dass weder Reduktionismus noch Emergentismus pauschal zu verwerfen oder zu bevorzugen sind. Vielmehr gilt es, zwischen ihren „guten“ und „schlechten“ Formen zu unterscheiden. Was zunächst wie eine grobschlächtige Pauschalisierung klingen mag, wird sich...

Zusammenfassung Kommunikation und Kooperation zwischen sozialwissenschaftlicher und evolutionär-anthropologischer Forschung ist durch einige Verständigungsbarrieren erschwert. In diesem Beitrag werden die wichtigsten dieser Probleme systematisch geordnet und auf die folgenden Fragen hin analysiert: Wo stehen der Annäherung sozialwissenschaftlicher...

Life history theory predicts that exposure to high mortality in early childhood leads to faster and riskier reproductive strategies. Individuals who grew up in a high mortality regime will not overly wait until they find a suitable partner and form a stable union because premature death would prevent them from reproducing. Cox proportional hazard m...

In diesem Aufsatz behandeln wir ausschnitthaft drei Zugriffe auf den Forschungsgegenstand der sozialen Kohäsion, wie sie typischerweise in der Evolutionären Anthropologie eine Rolle spielen. Mit ihrem Blick auf die Bedeutung der evolvierten Natur des Menschen für die soziale Praxis von Homo sapiens ist zunächst eine naturgeschichtliche Betrachtung...

Persistent interest lies in gender inequality, especially with regard to the favouring of sons over daughters. Economists are concerned with how privilege is transmitted across generations, and anthropologists have long studied sex-biased inheritance norms. There has, however, been no focused cross-cultural investigation of how parent–offspring cor...

Monogamy appears to have become the predominant human mating system with the emergence of highly unequal agricultural populations that replaced relatively egalitarian horticultural populations, challenging the conventional idea-based on the polygyny threshold model-that polygyny should be positively associated with wealth inequality. To address thi...

Motivated by the cooperative breeding hypothesis, we investigate the effect of having kin on the mortality of reproductive women based on family reconstitutions for the Krummhörn region (East Frisia, Germany, 1720–1874). We rely on a combination of Cox clustered hazard models and hazard models stratified at the family level. In order to study behav...

Spatial models estimating the effect of the individual natal kin. Summary of effects is presented in Table 2 in the Result section. (XLSX)

Alive models estimating the effect of the individual in-law kin. Summary of effects is presented in Table 3 in the Result section. (XLSX)

Spatial and alive models estimating the interaction between SES and the individual in-law kin. (XLSX)

Number of cases for the models presented in S1 Table. (XLSX)

Alive models estimating the effect of the individual natal kin. Summary of effects is presented in Table 2 in the Result section. (XLSX)

Spatial and alive models estimating the effect of the absolute size of the lineages. Summary of effects is presented in Table 5 in the result section. (XLSX)

Spatial models estimating the effect of the relative size of the lineages. Summary of effects is presented in Table 6 in the result section. (XLSX)

Spatial and alive models estimating the interaction between SES and the individual natal kin. (XLSX)

Number of cases for the models presented in S7 Table. (XLSX)

Number of cases for the models presented in S3 Table. (XLSX)

Spatial models estimating the effect of the individual in-law kin. Summary of effects is presented in Table 3 in the Result section. (XLSX)

Number of cases for the models presented in S5 Table. (XLSX)

Higher paternal age at offspring conception increases de novo genetic mutations. Based on evolutionary genetic theory we predicted older fathers’ children, all else equal, would be less likely to survive and reproduce, i.e. have lower fitness. In sibling control studies, we find support for negative paternal age effects on offspring survival and re...

This article investigates the relationship between additional siblings and the probability of offspring survival, marriage, and fertility across the historical populations of the St Lawrence Valley in Quebec (1670–1799) and the Krummhörn region in Germany (1720–1874). Both populations existed in agriculturally based economies, but differ in importa...

Among the population of the Krummhörn region (Ostfriesland, Germany) in the 18th and 19th centuries, the death of the father in the family led on average to the accelerated marriage of his children. Three evolutionary explanations are offered for this “paternal absence” effect in the literature: namely, (i) the assumption of an adaptive “psychosoci...

Higher paternal age at offspring conception increases de novo genetic mutations (Kong et al., 2012). Based on evolutionary genetic theory we predicted that the offspring of older fathers would be less likely to survive and reproduce, i.e. have lower fitness. In a sibling control study, we find clear support for negative paternal age effects on offs...

Das Gewissen ist durch Merkmale gekennzeichnet, die sich nicht so ohne weiteres aus der Wirkweise der natürlichen Selektion verstehen lassen, weil mit ihm – im evolutionären Sinn – nachteilige Folgen verbunden sind. Wir versuchen in diesem Aufsatz, das Paradox mit einer “Helfer-Theorie” der Gewissensevolution zu lösen, die den Ursprung der menschli...

Commentary on J. Gowdy & L. Krall "The economic origins of ultrasociality": We question the sequence of evolutionary transitions leading to ultrasociality in humans proposed by Gowdy & Krall. Evidence indicates that families are, and likely always have been, the primary productive units in human agricultural economies, suggesting that genetic relat...

Aus den vielfältigen evolutionstheoretischen Zugängen zur menschlichen Altruismus-Moral wird in diesem kurzen Aufsatz schwerpunktmäßig jener behandelt, der sich um ein verbessertes Verständnis des Gewissens und seiner Funktionen bei der Moralproduktion bemüht. Dabei wird die „Helfer-Theorie“ der Gewissensevolution skizziert, deren wesentliches Argu...

AbstrAct: In this paper, two theories regarding the biological evolution of morality with conscience as its central regulatory agency are compared and contrasted. One theory ("navigator theory") interprets conscience as astrategically operating agency for the optimum balance between selfish and altruistic be-havioral tendencies to maximize gains in...

Attachment between an infant and his or her parents is a major topic within developmental psychology. An increasing number of psychologists, evolutionary biologists and anthropologists are articulating their doubts that attachment theory in its present form is applicable worldwide, without, however, denying that the development of attachment is a u...

The Biological Evolution of Conscience - Strategies between Selfishness and Obedience In this essay, two theories regarding the biological evolution of morality with conscience as its central regulatory agency are compared and contrasted. One theory (“navigator theory”) interprets conscience as a strategically operating agency for the optimum bala...

Dieser Beitrag widmet sich der Darstellung des systematischen Zusammenhangs des mit dem Aufkommen der Experimentellen Philosophie neu entstandenen Teilbereichs der Experimentellen Ethik mit der spätestens seit den 1980er Jahren wieder populär gewordenen Evolutionären Ethik, einer Teildisziplin des philosophischen Naturalismus. Nach einer kurzen Cha...

In this article we try to give a philosophically reflected introductory overview of the current theoretical developments in the field of evolutionary aesthetics. Our aim is not completeness. Rather, we try to depict some of the central assumptions and explanatory tools frequently used in evolutionary accounts of human aesthetical preferences and ad...

Soziobiologie ist die Wissenschaft von der biologischen Angepasstheit des tierlichen und menschlichen Sozialverhaltens. Weil Sozialverhalten eine ganz wesentliche Rolle in den Selbsterhaltungs- und Fortpflanzungsbemühungen der Organismen spielt, unterliegt es der formenden und optimierenden Kraft der evolutionsbiologischen Vorgänge. Das Erkenntnisi...

Zweigeschlechtliche Fortpflanzung setzt notwendigerweise ein Zusammenspiel zwischen Männchen und Weibchen voraus, weshalb im Verfolg direkter Fitnessinteressen immer auch die Fitnessinteressen von Geschlechtspartnerinnen oder Geschlechtspartnern berührt werden. Dabei können männliche und weibliche Interessen parallel verlaufen oder aber konfligiere...

Eltern stehen vor einem ständigen Optimierungsproblem. Sollen sie weiter in einen bereits existenten Nachkommen investieren – und wenn ja, in welchem Umfang? – oder aber sollen sie ihr begrenztes Investment zugunsten eines alternativen, möglicherweise zukünftigen reproduktiven Vorgangs zurückhalten?

Abendländische Denktradition hat die anti-evolutionäre Sichtweise einer Natur/Kultur-Antinomie hervorgebracht und weithin geistig verfestigt. Danach sei menschliche Natur körperlich, organisch, genetisch determiniert, angeboren, reflex- und instinkthaft, kurz: eben biologisch. Kultur hingegen sei geistig, seelisch, erworben, flexibel, künstlich, ra...

Als Klassiker der ethnologischen Gewaltforschung können einführend die Arbeiten von Margaret Mead (1901–1978) und Ruth F. Benedict (1887–1948) genannt werden. Mead veröffentlichte 1937 einen Sammelband zu Cooperation and Competition Among Primitive Peoples, in dem die Autoren am Beispiel von 13 Stämmen (Afrika, Südostasien, Ozeanien, Nordamerika, G...

The genealogical data of family reconstitution studies is of interest to research inspired by Darwinian theory primarily for two reasons. First, they contain personal data and not highly aggregated statistics, such as are typically analysed in demography. Therefore, the individual- and family-oriented structure of the records permits analysis of th...

Based on historical data pertaining to the Krummhörn population (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Germany), we compared reproductive histories of mothers according to whether the maternal grandmother (MGM) or the paternal grandmother (PGM) or neither of them was resident in the parents' parish at the time of the mother's first birth. In contras...

Because only daughters inherit the paternal X-chromosome, an asymmetry in adaptive investment decisions has been suggested for certain patrilineal kin. Namely, paternal grandmothers (PGMs) may favor a granddaughter over a grandson, because (within the limits of paternity uncertainty) the former definitely carries one of their X-chromosomes, while t...

Self-deception may be the result of social manipulation and conflict management of social in-groups. Although self-deception certainly has offensive and defensive aspects, a full evolutionary understanding of this phenomenon is not possible until strategies of other parties are included into a model of self-perception and self-representation.

Ein konsequent darwinischer Blick auf den Menschen bedeutet, auch im Denken, Fühlen und Handeln biologische Anpassungsgeschichte zu suchen, denn auch die psychischen und mentalen Eigenheiten des Homo sapiens unterliegen der natürlichen Selektion. Lässt sich die religiöse Lebenspraxis von Menschen daher auch aus einer Fitnessperspektive betrachten?

In diesem Essay werden Befunde und Argumente zusammengetragen, die für die Auffassung sprechen, dass es sich bei der menschlichen Religiosität um ein Bündel evolutionärer Angepasstheiten handeln könnte. Wenngleich Religionen aus wissenschaftlicher Sicht keinen Wahrheitsanspruch erheben können, scheint religiöse Lebenspraxis mit adaptiven Vorteilen...

The suitors' ownership of land influenced the marriage age of the women in the Krummhörn population (Germany, 1720–1874). This led to a characteristic distribution of the categories of land ownership of husbands by the wife's age at marriage: the younger the brides, the higher was the percentage of high-status males among their bridegrooms. But the...

Biologists use genetic relatedness between family members to explain the evolution of many behavioural and developmental traits in humans, including altruism, kin investment and longevity. Women's post-menopausal longevity in particular is linked to genetic relatedness between family members. According to the 'grandmother hypothesis', post-menopaus...

Adaptations must meet three criteria: they are inherited, are the product of historical selective processes and thus show a special-purpose design, and they solve an adaptive problem or solved an adaptive problem at least at the time of their evolution. Central components of human religiosity (spirituality , group bonding, forming a personal identi...

Warum eigentlich gibt es das Phänomen des Alterns? Man könnte geneigt sein, diese Frage als trivial abzutun, denn schließlich scheint eine ganz und gar unkomplizierte Antwort auf der Hand zu liegen: Alles ist vergänglich, und irgendwann sind die Lebewesen, einschließlich Mensch verbraucht und ausgezehrt. Unter dem unbestechlichen Einfluss der Zeit...

In a Darwinian world, religious behavior - just like other behaviors - is likely to have undergone a process of natural selection in which it was rewarded in the evolutionary currency of reproductive success. This book aims to provide a better understanding of the social scenarios in which selection pressure led to religious practices becoming an e...

We describe the natal dispersal patterns of the Krummhörn population as the outcome of intrafamilial competition. Depending on the affiliation with a specific social group and the sex of the individual, this competition is driven by different factors and obeys a different functional logic: The dispersal patterns of the daughters of landless workers...

Human behavioral ecologists have shown that the reproductive lives of women are affected by both their husbands and the grandmothers of their children. Study of the combined effect of the roles of the husbands and mothers of 650 Khasi women aged 16–50 years supports the ideas that the reproductive agendas of husbands may require more than women wan...

Consistent with and in extension of the "social brain hypothesis," I discuss the idea that the intuition of free will emerged during the course of primate social evolution. If, as the "social brain hypothesis" alleges, the main selective pressure among primates is on generating social knowledge about one's cooperators and competitors, then it is th...

The media have appended the novel mode of virtual experience to the mode of real experience, and therefore, we are now living in an age in which the biologically evolved mechanisms for perceiving and interpreting the world are bumping into phenomena for which they have not been made, biologically speaking. Modernity has not thrown these mechanisms...

Dieser Beitrag liefert Anregungen zu einem konsequent naturalistischen Verständnis des Lernens auf der Basis evolutionärer Theorie. Danach lässt sich Lernen als die Ausführung genetischer Programme interpretieren. Aus der adaptiven Spezialisierung der Informationsverarbeitung im Gehirn folgt, dass nicht Beliebiges gelernt werden kann, sondern das g...

This contribution offers suggestions for a thoroughly naturalistic understanding of learning on the basis of evolutionary theory. Accordingly, learning should be interpreted as the realization of genetic programs. Adaptive specialization of information processing in the brain means that not just anything can be learnt, but only those things are lea...

Scientists from different disciplines, including anthropology, psychology, psychiatry, pediatrics, neurobiology, endocrinology, and molecular biology, explore the concepts of attachment and bonding from varying scientific perspectives. Attachment and bonding are evolved processes; the mechanisms that permit the development of selective social bonds...

The origins and consequences of early social attachments are longstanding interests of developmental scientists that have been enlivened through the integrative contributions of psychobiological research. Among the issues to emerge in this integrative work are:  A better understanding of the behavioral and biological prerequisites for forming firs...

Nach wie vor ungeklärt ist der evolutionäre Status der Menopause. Ist sie eine biologische Angepasstheit zur Erhöhung des Lebensreproduktionserfolgs (wie ursprünglich angenommen) oder vielmehr eine nicht-funktionale “Erblast” aus der Stammesgeschichte der Säugetiere (wie neuere Überlegungen nahe legen)? Ist das postmenopausale Überleben eine Art “N...

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Zusammenfassung: Wir argumentieren, dass die Psychologie des Schwiegermutter/Schwiegertochter-Konflikts auf einen genetischen Interessenskonflikt zuruckgeht. Anhand von Statistiken zur Totgeburtlichkeit zeigen wir, dass dieser Konflikt unter den sozio-okologischen Bedingungen der landlichen Krummhorner Bevolkerung des 18. und 19.Jahrhunderts (Ostfr...

In dieser Arbeit wird die Position verteidigt, in der Evolutionären Ethik die Trennung zwischen Fakten und Normen einzuebnen, weil moralische Subjekte faktisch (und nicht etwa normativ) ihren moralischen Intuitionen unterliegen. Diese sind nicht-rationalen Ursprungs und gehören als neuronale Prozesse zur Natur des Menschen. Als biologische Merkmale...

How can the evolution of religiosity be explained? To answer this question, we attempt to develop an understanding of the psychological domains underlying religious behaviour. We see four evolved domains, the sum and interaction of which constitute religiosity, namely: mysticism, ethics, myths and rituals. Even if the individual content, accents an...

However the faculty of aesthetic judgment may be defined in detail, on the psychological level it is founded on the evaluation of things and scenarios as “attractive” or “repulsive”. Beauty attracts, ugliness repels, and thus the aesthetic judgment appears to be the reflection of a psychological preference. Psychological preferences, however, are e...

Helle et al .( 1) showed that producing and raising sons reduced the longevity of pre- industrial Sami women, whereas daughters tended to have the opposite effect. They suggested that the life-shortening effect of sons could be attributed to higher endocri- nological or physiological costs of produc- ing sons compared with those of producing daught...

The authors designate four challenges for a theory of evolutionary pedagogics which result from the theoretical progress made in biological science: subjectively perceived autonomy - constitutive for pedagogics - meets with biological determination; teachability - fundamental for pedagogical action - seems biologically unlikely; preparation for fut...

We analyzed data from the historic population of the Krummhörn (Ostfriesland, Germany, 1720-1874) to determine the effects of grandparents in general and grandmothers in particular on child mortality. Multilevel event-history models were used to test how the survival of grandparents in general influenced the survival of the children. Random effects...

Evidence from family reconstitution studies suggests that variations in infant mortality may reflect differences in parental solicitude. For various proximate reasons that might originate from emotional, material or social interests, parents may be inclined to invest differently in the survival of their offspring. Evolutionary theory holds that the...

Discusses the reception of sociobiology in German psychology and anthropology. The authors note that when Germans hear the name of Darwin, they tend to associate immediately Haeckelian Social Darwinism of the crudest kind, and the worst memories of the German past are activated. However, it is argued that this reaction does not characterize any lon...