Slightly odd this. Mark Lawson talking about "Literary Darwinism". I very much like this:
The fossil-heads of
fiction are less open to objection on Pride and Prejudice: here they
find women in competition for the man with highest status, a long-time
principle of evolutionary psychology. But so what? Darwinism is an
account of human behaviour based on close observation, but so is the
novel. Therefore, finding Darwin’s principles in fiction is like being
shocked at spotting a croissant in a patisserie.
(Although I would argue about Darwinism being an explanation of human behaviour but that’s another matter. It’s been used to try and explain some of it but that’s an application of it, not the root of it).
This is odd though:
The unstoppable progress
towards 4m UK paperback sales of The Da Vinci Code is also surely bad
news for those who seek to sail the HMS Beagle into the English seminar
room. The hero of this book is a wimpish academic who survives by
out-thinking a series of fitter thugs and, while the story gives
supernatural creationist myths an irreverent twist, it completely
depends on them for both themes and appeal.
"Fit" in Darwinian terms means fit for the environment in which the animal finds itself. We are very much less "fit" in the specifically physical sense than just about any other species. But we are vastly better at out-thinking them which is what makes us successful in evolutionary terms. A physically weak but clever hero is actually the story of our species, not the opposite.
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