Synthesis in the human evolutionary behavioural sciences

Over the last three decades, the application of evolutionary theory to the human sciences has shown remarkable growth. This growth has also been characterised by a ‘splitting’ process, with the emergence of distinct sub-disciplines, most notably: Human Behavioural Ecology (HBE), Evolutionary Psychology (EP) and studies of Cultural Evolution (CE). Multiple applications of evolutionary ideas to the human sciences are undoubtedly a good thing, demonstrating the usefulness of this approach to human affairs. However, this fracture has been associated with considerable tension, a lack of integration, and sometimes outright conflict between researchers. In recent years however, there have been clear signs of hope that a synthesis of the human evolutionary behavioural sciences is underway. Here, we briefly review the history of the debate, both its theoretical and practical causes; then provide evidence that the field is currently becoming more integrated, as the traditional boundaries between sub-disciplines become blurred. This article constitutes the first paper under the new editorship of the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, which aims to further this integration by explicitly providing a forum for integrated work.

Partial Secrets

The ability and right to have secrets may be a condition of social ethics (Derrida, A Taste for the Secret), but at the same time the nature of secrets is that they undermine themselves. Once told, secrets are no longer secret but are known. Even to name them as possibilities is to bring them into view as objects of knowledge. Secrets are thus always in some ways partial secrets, but their “openness” also connotes the lack of certainty of any knowledge about them, their evasiveness, their lack of fixity, and hence, their partial character and openness to change. In this article, I explore partial secrets in relation to a 2011 interview study of HIV support in the United Kingdom, where HIV’s relatively low prevalence and high treatment access tends toward its invisibilization. I suggest that in this context, HIV is positioned ambiguously, as a “partial secret,” in an ongoing and precarious tension between public knowledge and acceptance of HIV, HIV’s constitution as a condition of citizenship attended by full human rights, and HIV’s being resecreted through ongoing illness, constrained resources, citizenly exclusion, and the psychological and social isolation of those affected.