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Behavioral and Brain Sciences Behavioral and Brain Sciences

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Analyses do not support the parasite-stress theory of human sociality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2012

Thomas E. Currie  and
Ruth Mace
Thomas E. Currie
Affiliation:
Human Evolutionary Ecology Group, Department of Anthropology, University College London, London WC1H 0BW, United Kingdom. t.currie@ucl.ac.ukr.mace@ucl.ac.ukhttp://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucsatechttp://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/staff/r_macehttp://www.ucl.ac.uk/heeg
Ruth Mace
Affiliation:
Human Evolutionary Ecology Group, Department of Anthropology, University College London, London WC1H 0BW, United Kingdom. t.currie@ucl.ac.ukr.mace@ucl.ac.ukhttp://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucsatechttp://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/staff/r_macehttp://www.ucl.ac.uk/heeg
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Abstract

Re-analysis of the data provided in the target article reveals a lack of evidence for a strong, universal relationship between parasite stress and the variables relating to sociality. Furthermore, even if associations between these variables do exist, the analyses presented here do not provide evidence for Fincher & Thornhill's (F&T's) proposed causal mechanism.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , April 2012 , pp. 83 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

Currie, T. E., Greenhill, S. J. & Mace, R. (2010) Is horizontal transmission really a problem for phylogenetic comparative methods? A simulation study using continuous cultural traits. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 365:3903–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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