A 6-year follow-up of Dr. Richard Wrangham’s masterpiece, The Goodness Paradox: mobile hunter-gatherer bands and the evolution of our psychological abilities

Dr Richard Wrangham argues in ‘The Goodness Paradox . . . that our psychology primarily evolved in African, mobile, hunter-gatherer bands before the end of the last ice age. This conclusion is supported by the exquisite cave paintings and tool artifacts from that ancient period. Further evidence also comes from anthropological studies of current hunter-gatherers that represent the earlier time. These studies have also identified the natural selection processes that produced our psychology. The processes consisted of four behaviors: 1) egalitarianism, 2) problems for egalitarianism, 3) Egalitarianism enforcement and effects on our psychology, 4) Avoiding being targeted and expansion of selection effects. The psychological traits arising from these four behaviors and highlighted by Dr. Wrangham are emotions, intelligence, conscience, and personality. Based on his evidence, we also argue for traits of theory of mind, language, aesthetics, and free will. Further support for the importance of the four behaviors is also discussed, including the domestication syndrome, natural selection pressure, feedback models, identical twin studies, and our personal experiences of consciousness, agency and free will. We conclude by discussing why Dr. Wrangham’s masterpiece and his perspectives have not gained more acceptance.