With the breakdown of family and church in the 1950's and years following, the traditional fonts of good advice (Mom, Dad, Aunt Gertrude, Rev. Smith) were gradually replaced by progressive academics like Doctor Spock and syndicated columnists like Dear Abby.Well, social patterns have continued to...uh...evolve, so it should hardly be a surprise that enlightened organs like Great Britain's liberal newspaper, the Guardian introduced their own "Evolutionary Agony Aunt." No kidding. Carole Jahme's master's degree in evolutionary psychology and her authorship of Beauty and the Beasts: Woman, Ape and Evolution won for her this august position. And as the Guardian encourages, "Any questions? Email your problems to Carole...Our evolutionary agony aunt shines the cold light of evolutionary psychology on life's little problems."
And they thought Darwinism wasn't hep stuff.
How is Aunt Carole doing in her new job?
Well, author Denyse O'Leary, writing this article for Mercator, suggests that, so far, there has been more soap opera than science.
...The hand of popular culture is far more evident in the series than the paw prints of common ancestors. In her first column, addressing a woman who can’t decide between two men, Carole advises that “some Darwinists might say” that she her best approach is to commit surreptitious adultery. After all, “A worldwide study of sexual preferences revealed that females feel more secure if they have a mate in reserve. It seems you have the best of both worlds.”
Or the worst, if one or both of those guys find out - historically, it is a reliable way for a woman to get herself killed. And in fairness Carole does warn her. Still, we are also informed, in the next reply that “We have not evolved to stay with one mate for the whole of our adult lives.”
But Carole’s tone changes abruptly when the advice seeker is a guy who wants to fool around. Suddenly, the agony aunt is all a lather of concern for the poor wife, and we learn that “The sentiments of love and guilt are not Christian hangovers, they are evolved, higher cognitive emotions. These sentiments are adapted to best guide us through life.” Whatever the problem is, evolutionary psychology can not only explain it, but explain it within the comfort zone of the glossy women’s mags...
The rest of O'Leary's article (and it makes for fascinating reading) is here.
