HUMAN NATURE AND THE NEW EUROPE (ed. Michael T. McGuire, 1993); LAW, BIOLOGY AND CULTURE: THE DEVELOPMENT OF LAW (ed. Margaret Gruter & Paul Bohannan, 1983) [hereinafter LAW, BIOLOGY AND CULTURE]; ROGER D. Rodgers, Jr., The Lesson of the Owl and the Crows: The Role of Deception in the Evolution of the Environmental Statutes, 4 J. Masters, Evolutionary Biology, Political Theory and the State, in LAW, BIOLOGY & CULTURE, supra note 3, at 171.
A PRIMER IN LAW-RELEVANT EVOLUTIONARY
Nor does the article suggest that evolutionary analysis is the most important analysis or that it should supplant other analyzes that might more usefully supplement or supplement it. Far from oversimplifying human behavior, evolutionary analysis will account for the unique history, consciousness, capabilities, and richly complex behavioral processes of our species more fully than perhaps currently incomplete behavioral models. And if it were possible to delve directly into the discussion of the model in II. to the work and analysis of child abuse that shows it, I would do that.
Preparatory Remarks: Law and Biology on
To the extent that the ability to sing and the urge to respond with song to certain environmental cues has been influenced by hereditary predisposition, the proportion of male robins in successive generations that sing has inevitably increased over time until we now see that the trait typically is. of males of the species. In the same way, much behavior—including much human behavior—is fully understood in terms of proximate and ultimate causes. The Evolutionary Perspective: On the Making of Ancestors Like some of the world's most complex games, evolution takes a.
The Evolutionary Perspective: On the Making of
The Duration of the Game: The Clock of
After nearly fifty million years of subsequent early primate history, the ancestors we share with today's orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees branched off from the ancestors of what we now call the apes. Thirteen million years later, the ancestors we share with gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos branched off from the ancestors of today's orangutans." Our own hominid ancestors subsequently diverged from the ancestors of gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos about three million years later32 with the first Homo (Homo habilis) that appeared nearly five million years after that.3 Although archaic forms of Homo sapiens appeared after about two million more years (and remain the subject of continuing anthropological debate), the so-called modern humans—Homo sapiens sapiens—see to have appeared for another 200,000 years?4 Nevertheless, it was still about another 70,000 years before our own subspecies of Homo sapiens, which we imagine when we think of ourselves, had apparently supplanted our competing subspecies, Homo sapiens Looking back, we see the first Homo around two million years ago, the archaic Homo sapiens around 300,000 years ago, our own subspecies of Homo sapiens around 100,000 years ago, and the post-Neanderthal human existence just 35,000 years ago since. .
The Objective of the Game: Persistence of
Although reproductive success is ultimately all that matters in evolution, this proposition often proves a difficult sell outside biological circles. To the extent that other family members also share genes with an individual, their reproductive success also contributes to the individual's reproductive success. Instead, one must take stock of the extent to which an individual has increased the reproductive success of its relatives (discounted according to the degree of relatedness).
The Ground Rule for the Game: Natural
Conversely, when a maladaptive and heritable trait lowers the reproductive success of the organism that carries it relative to the reproductive success of the organism's contemporaries, then that trait will, on average, decrease in prevalence in successive generations. Many adaptations are simply so successful that they are shared by all members of the species for many generations. The first female will represent her genes in a larger part of the later population.
The Strategies for the Game: Reproductive
On the other hand, if mating results in fertilization, the female must continue to invest in the organism growing inside her, often for long periods of time, and often must assist the vulnerable young (for example, by nursing them) for a significant postpartum pe - riod. For example, the theoretical maximum number of children a male human can father can number in the thousands. The theoretical maximum number of children a female human can mother, on the other hand, even assuming regular triplets, probably hovers close to one hundred - with a practical limit probably in the neighborhood of thirty.
The Strategies in Tension: On Conflict,
In species with internal fertilization, for example, the female is always connected to the offspring of her body, regardless of which male fathered them. In the end, each gets twice as much benefit from succeeding at the other's expense as he would from sacrificing for the other." In other words, each sibling can be expected to appreciate the parent's input, for example. receives twice as much as the parent's investment received by his sibling—and to treat his parents and siblings appropriately Y. This will be explored in detail below because it is central to the model's demonstration of child abuse.
Homo sapiens sapiens
It would be completely illogical to assume, for example, that what we call human. 3 For example, it is environmentally deterministic and is therefore as incoherent as a genetically deterministic theory would be. For example, one might expect people on average to devote extraordinary energy to sex and child-rearing activities, to allocate attention differentially to kin and non-kin, to show gender differences in behavior, to show aggression in non-random patterns, to have psychological/emotional reactions that would promote reproductive success during an environment of evolutionary adaptation will cooperate and lack cooperation in patterns consistent with game theory, and so on.
Closing Remarks: Some Points to Take Away
EVOLUTIONARY ANALYSIS IN LAW: A
Learning more about modern evolutionary biology can help clarify why the discipline is inevitably important to the enterprise of law, but it will not tell just how. Consequently, this part proposes a model for the useful use of evolutionary analysis in the pursuit of pre-articulated legal goals."0 8 This part is divided into four sections (see Figure 1) corresponding to the four stages of the model:.
The Identification Stage
What Is the Legal Goal?
For example, the legislation should specifically help to reduce driving under the influence of alcohol or to reduce child abuse (of course not at any cost).,1I. Child abuse does not yield a universally accepted definition, in part because of the ambiguities inherent in terms such as "severe" and "chronic." Besharov, "Doing Something" about Child Abuse: The Need to Narrow the Grounds for State Intervention, 8 HARv.
See PANEL ON CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT RESEARCH, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, UNDERSTANDING CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT which summarizes the variety of definitions) [hereinafter UNDERSTANDING CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT]; Richard J. TzENG ET AL., THEORIES OF CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT: DIFFERENTIAL PERSPECTIVES, SUMMARIES AND EVALUATIONS explaining definitional approaches) [hereinafter TZENG ET AL., THEORIES OF CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT] and sources cited therein. Congress then passed the first Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act in 1974 and amended it several times through 1994.
The act established a program to lead and consolidate national and state data collection efforts, conduct national surveys related to domestic violence, and sponsor research to identify, prevent, and treat child abuse and neglect. An example of such data collection appears in RESEARCH NATIONAL CENTER FOR CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION, NATIONAL CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION COMMUNITY, CURRENT TRENDS IN CHILD ABUSE REPORTING AND FATALITIES: RESULTS OF THE FATALITY SURVEY (69951) of further CURRENT TENDERS IN CHILDREN'S RE-IMBURSEMENT. FOR CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION, CURRENT TRENDS IN CHILD ABUSE REPORTING, AND CHILD FATALITIES: RESULTS OF THE 1990 50TH ANNUAL SURVEY (1991) [hereinafter 1990 SURVEY] (summarizing findings).
A 1995 Gallup poll suggests that the actual number of children physically abused each year may exceed three million—more than 16 times the number officially reported to the National Center for Child Abuse and Neglect.
Will Evolutionary Analysis Further Pursuit of
34; The psychopathology model blames child abuse on parental psychiatric disorders or mental illness (such as sadism). It suggests that child abuse occurs when sociodemographic stressors meet abuse-permissive cultural, community, and family socialization. These prevailing theories are quite well-developed and distinct.”9 They reflect the extraordinary diligence of many scholars and practitioners deeply committed to understanding and reducing child maltreatment.
For more detail, see TZENG ET AL., THEORIES OF CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT, supra note 112, at 10-200 (grouping 46 separate theoretical views into nine paradigms that describe individual theories, summarize various theoretical views, and evaluate the current status for theories of child abuse); Ammerman & Michel Hersen, Research in Child Abuse and Neglect: Current Status and an Agenda for the Future, in CHILDREN AT RISK, supra note 112, at 3 (summarizing the history of child abuse research). These four categories can hardly capture the full sophistication and variety among all the theories of child abuse.
See, for example, TZENG ET AL., THEORIES OF CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT, supra note 112, at 11; Jay Belsky, Child Abuse. Is the failure to reduce child abuse solely due to the inadequate implementation of adequate theories? The Advisory Council on Child Abuse and Neglect calls child abuse an “epidemic” that requires a critical national emergency response.
Herrenkohl, Research Directions Related to Child Abuse and Neglect, in CHILDREN AT RISK, supra note 112, at 85, 91.
Summary
The Information Stage
What Are the Relevant Evolutionary Theories
What Empirical Evidence Bears on Those
How Does the Evidence Fit the Predictions?
Do the Theories Apply to Humans?
Should the Theories Be Considered in Legal
Summary
The Integration Stage
Where Do Prevailing and Evolutionary
Conflicts between dominant and evolutionary theories are a subset of their differences, and it would be useful to divide the differences into constitutive and predictive. The theoretical substructures of dominant and evolutionary theories are simply their conceptual bases and most fundamental elements of orientation and logic. People often assume that the differences between evolutionary and non-evolutionary theories must lead to a winner-takes-all conflict (as if the dominant, non-evolutionary theory should defeat a.
Specifically, for example, by failing to first identify the differences in levels of analysis between dominant and evolutionary theories of child abuse, many have understandably confused perfectly compatible explanations with alternative ones. For example, evolutionary theories assume that evolutionary processes have influenced and continue to influence important human behaviors.” No. Nevertheless, the difference between these basic assumptions of dominant and evolutionary theories of stepparent abuse is at least not necessarily in conflict.
Identifying differences between the predictions of dominant and evolutionary theories requires careful comparisons, with attention to uniqueness and vigilance for similarities, overlaps, divergences, and inconsistencies. According to this approach, the differences between the predictions made by evolutionary and non-evolutionary theories will be Another way of saying this is that the assumption on which the conflict seems to rest is not really foundational to non-evolutionary theory.
Because it is actually tertiary, it can be modified to include a role for natural selection without undermining non-evolutionary theory.
How May Non-Conflicting Elements Be
Sum m ary
The Application Stage
How Can Evolutionary Analysis Help To
For example, evolutionary analysis provides a broader and more subtle understanding of adult-infant relationships, allowing us to see child abuse in a broader context. Some previous general studies of child abuse reported the number of victims of child abuse in stepparent homes. OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVS., CHILD MALTREATMENT 1993: STATE REPORTS TO THE NATIONAL CENTER ON CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT glossary B-5 (1995) [hereinafter STATE REPORTS].
See LOS ANGELES COUNTY INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT (ICAN), ICAN, 1994 CHILD DEATH REVIEW TEAM REPORT, at 15-34. Recognizing the effects of evolution on the incidence of child abuse and neglect can broaden and reorient our view of appropriate interventions. The Report of Suspected Child Abuse Neglect to the Connecticut Department of Social Services, for example, asks for the name of the alleged perpetrator but not the perpetrator's relationship to the child.
In New York City, for example, a study found that 10% of reported child abuse cases went uninvestigated for 40 days or more. PREVENTION RESEARCH ON CHILD ABUSE, NATIONAL COMM'N FOR CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION, CURRENT TRENDS IN CHILD ABUSE REPORTING AND FATALITIES: THE. The agencies "often lack consistent criteria to help employees make informed judgments in their investigations of reported or suspected child abuse." Understanding CHILD Abuse and Neglect, supra note 112, at 269.
As a final example, evolutionary analysis reveals a predictable rise in child abuse and infanticide as a result of anti-abortion and anti-contraception policies.
