Introduction

When Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859, he was confident that in time it would supply a new basis for all the life sciences. Towards the end of the Origin he wrote:

In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history. (Darwin, 1859, p. 458)

Darwin was perhaps overoptimistic, for despite some early work by William James in America it was not until the 1970s that the evolutionary approach to human behaviour in the form of sociobiology and what was to become evolutionary psychology took root. For much

Psychology and the theory of evolution

of the twentieth century psychologists failed to follow Darwin’s lead and either ignored or misinterpreted Darwin. Many psychologists and biologists, and I count myself one of them, now think that it is time for psychology once again to re-establish links with the central paradigm that underlies all of the life sciences: the theory of evolution by natural selection. I will leave it up to you, the student, to read this book and decide if you think psychology has anything to learn from Darwinism.