It’s All Your Mom’s Fault!

According to Oxford University’s Andy Gardner and University of Tennessee’s Francisco Ubeda, it is evolutionarily advantageous for men to be helpful and for women to be selfish. So, looking out for number one comes from your mom and altruism comes from your dad.

The authors support this claim with some observations about the behavior of ancient peoples, some knowledge about a genetic process known as imprinting, and a heaping helping of speculation. “The genes you receive from your mother, like a demon sat on your shoulder, try to make you act selfishly.”

Publication of this kind of claim makes it vital that students are taught the difference between data, interpretation of data, extrapolation from data, and of course wild speculation. Some of these qualify as good science and others should be restricted to where they belong–table discussion in the famous pubs of Oxford University.

Ubeda and Gardner, A model for genomic imprinting in the social brain: adults. Evolution 2010.