ABSTRACT

H uman mental capacities, including the capacities for culture, are the product of biological evolution. Human mental capacities in turn develop in, draw from, and operate within richly structured cultural environments. These two uncontroversial truisms are often seen as competing, mutually exclusive statements about human psychology. But they are not. Not only are these two perspectives compatible, they are in fact mutually necessary for a thorough scientific understanding of psychological processes on the one hand, and human cultures on the other.