The Incomplete Human: What Do We Not Yet Know About Ourselves and Why Does It Matter?

-----

Evolutionary explanations for human affairs are consequential. They go beyond descriptions of how things are to providing purported explanations for why they are that way, and not some other way. The addition of cultural evolutionary theorizing takes us beyond descriptions of how human traits originated in deep time to explain much more recent historical events and cultural differences in evolutionary terms. These narratives are consequential and come with substantial epistemic and ethical risks. In this talk Barrett discusses the nature of these risks, how they are entangled with the values of the people who do and do not engage in evolutionary knowledge production, and what the consequences might be for the scientific, political, and everyday spheres in which evolutionary narratives circulate, including in current debates about the future of humanity. Barrett offers some tentative suggestions for change through increased attention to the incompleteness of our knowledge.

-----