Don Symons (1942-2024), Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara
Don Symons was a pioneer of evolutionary psychology in its earliest years. He was a fundamental thinker who nurtured scientists, young and old, who were interested in what he called “evolution-minded approaches” to human behavior. The Center for Evolutionary Psychology is at UCSB mostly because Don Symons made it so.
Steve Pinker wrote a moving piece about Don in Quillette, Sage of Sex and Psyche: Remembering Don Symons. He did a brilliant job encapsulating many insights that originated with Don, that are now taken for granted. Read it. Now. Especially if you were a child in the 1980s and 1990s, when Don was doing his most foundational work.
Don is best known for his pathbreaking–and still relevant–1979 book, The Evolution of Human Sexuality. But I would like to call your attention to his chapters and articles on the foundations of the field: about why Darwinian claims about behavior necessarily entail claims about psychological adaptations, why many of these adaptations will be specialized and domain-specific, the difference between studying adaptations and “adaptiveness”, and about how not to think about culture. Many of these are still required reading for graduate students taking general exams; links to some of them are below.
On the use and misuse of Darwinism in the study of human behavior. (Symons, 1992)
Adaptiveness and adaptation (Symons, 1990)
If we’re all Darwinians, what’s the fuss about? (Symons, 1987)
L-R: Don Symons, Leda Cosmides, and Paulina Ospina, Don’s wife. 2015
Don Symons, 1992, in his safari vest, as always.
Front: Cindy Reyfus, David Buss, Don Symons, Don Brown
Behind: Steve Pinker, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby
