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The narcissan fire.

This article attempts to integrate psychological constructs into sociobiological theory, as suggested by Leak and Christopher (1982), and Daley and Wilson (1983). In Promethean Fire, Lumsden and Wilson argue that something "peculiar and powerful" held back the evolution of subhuman species. It is suggested that, on the contrary, something was elaborated and magnified in human evolution which propelled the species across the intellectual gulf that separates it from its evolutionary predecessors. Nonhuman animals rely on adaptations whose primary functions are to subserve physical needs. Human evolution, on the other hand, entailed the emergence of adaptations that subserved a psychological need. This involved the homeostatic maintenance of a psychological state, labelled egotism or narcissism, which (a) generated exploratory behaviours resulting in controlling some aspects of natural selection, and (b) resulted in a change, relative to other primates, in the mechanisms and patterns of pairbonding. Unlike the view offered by Lumsden and Wilson, this presentation accounts for both pairbonding and the incest taboo with the same mechanisms. In a recent article, Leak and Christopher (1982) call for the integration of Freudian constructs into sociobiological theory, suggesting that many of these constructs may be viewed as "adaptations to the selection pressures that have shaped the hominid gene pool" (p. 321). Efforts to introduce psychological and/or psychoanalytic variables into evolutionary and sociobiological theory occasionally encounter resistance (see Noonan, 1987; Ruse, 1987). The most frequent criticism involves the allegation that such efforts are conjectural, untestable, and unfalsifiable, citing Popper's (1972, 1976) celebrated contention that Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection is not a valid scientific theory. These criticisms have not themselves gone unchallenged (Noonan, 1987; Quinn & Dunham, 1982). According to Ruse (1987), to deny genuine scientific status to sociobiological approaches is "to apply standards that you would probably not apply to physics" (p. 9). Also, Kenneth Burstein passed away suddenly on 21 October 1987. The present article is condensed from one he had submitted earlier to Canadian Psychology. The original article was edited by two former students (J. Damron and C. Rea) and one colleague (Vito Modigliani). In condensing the original article, we strove to keep Burstein's message intact. We hope we have done so. Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Vito Modigliani, Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6. Searle (1978) argues that "What we need to do is rid the sociobiologist of the illusion that there is something unscientific about introducing the study of mental states as part of the study of animal behavior" (p. 182). Plotkin (1982) has observed that evolution is used mostly by behavioural scientists in its "weaker or broader sense," that is, as explanation without prediction. Thus, when it is invoked, criticisms are incurred about the lack of precision, and when it is not, psychology "is castigated for its failure to appreciate evolutionary theory at all." But Plotkin also points out that if evolution is the central conceptual framework of biology... and if psychology has been singularly guilty of failing to incorporate itself into the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology, then surely it is better that the increasing numbers of behavioral scientists cognizant of evolutionary thinking should use the theory in its broader, if weaker, sense than not to use it at all. (p. 59) This paper attempts to demonstrate the merit of Leak and Christopher's (1982) suggestion by proposing that what distinguishes humans from subhuman species is the reliance of the latter upon evolutionary adaptations whose principal functions were to satiate physical needs, whereas the evolution of humans was dominated by adaptations which fulfilled a genetically given psychological need. Thus, it is not necessary, as Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 1990, 31:2 109