Dear HCN,
I am unaware of any
science that can demonstrate hunters are “subconsciously killing
other male humans because of competition for females.” In my
reading of the literature, killing and bringing in high-level
protein packages in the shape of fish and game gets you more access
to females, not less. More access means greater reproductive
success (HCN, 11/23/98). Killing and bringing in other guys won’t
even get you a date.
Anytime the word
“subconscious’ shows up in an explanation of human behavior these
days, beware! Someone’s been reading Freud. Freud could explain
everything but predict nothing, so “subconscious’ explanations are
not only sub par, they are uniformly gratuitous and never supported
by evidence-based
research.
Paul
Quinnett
Cheney,
Washington
The writer is a
clinical psychologist and author of Darwin’s Bass, among other
books.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Don’t blame Freud.
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