Steven Pinker, an Evolutionary Biologist, Argues That Natural Selection Has

question 20

Multiple Choice

Steven Pinker, an evolutionary biologist, argues that natural selection has selected genes that cause us to feel little sexual attraction for people we have grown up with. From an anthropological perspective on kinship, what is wrong with this view?

• A) no gene (or combination of genes) has been linked to the proposed revulsion
• B) the range of relatives prohibited by the incest taboo varies too widely from society to society to be explained by a selection
• C) there is no reason to assume that the revulsion is the cause of the taboo, when it is equally probable that the incest taboo itself generates the psychological revulsion
• D) all of the above

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