PhD (Cand.) Evolutionary Geneticist | Evolutionary Developmental Biology | Biostatistics, Human Behaviour and Adaptation | Intersection of Biology and Culture.
Oct 26 • 20 tweets • 3 min read
🧵Empathy is a biased algorithm 🧵
Empathy is often romanticised as the pinnacle of moral development. But in evolutionary terms, it is a bounded adaptation - an affective mechanism fine-tuned to stabilise cooperation within coalitions, not to promote indiscriminate benevolence.
From an adaptive standpoint, empathy functions as an in-group reinforcement system. Its evolutionary utility lies in detecting distress or need in individuals whose welfare reciprocally benefits one’s own genetic or cultural fitness.
Oct 19 • 18 tweets • 3 min read
🧵Looking at Psychopathology
Psychopathy exists, but probably not as psychiatry traditionally defines it. It is not delusion, psychosis, or even disorder in the conventional sense. Rather, it is a stable neurodevelopmental variant within the human behavioural spectrum.
It is a phenotype characterised by shallow affect, blunted empathy, and instrumental cognition uncoupled from emotional regulation. To label it “madness” is simply a misunderstanding. To call it “evil” is moral projection.
