63. Dr. Hector A. Garcia — Sex, Power, and Partisanship: How Evolutionary Science Makes Sense of Our Political Divide
The Michael Shermer Show
Michael Shermer
4.4 • 921 Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2019
⏱️ 96 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Through the lens of evolutionary science, Dr. Garcia offers a novel perspective on why we hold our political ideas, and why they are so often in conflict. Drawing on examples from across the animal kingdom, Garcia reveals how even the most complex political processes can be influenced by our basic drives to survive and reproduce—including the policies we back, whether we are liberal or conservative, and whether we are inspired or repelled by the words of a president. Garcia explains how our political orientations derive from an ancestral history of violent male competition, surprisingly influencing how we respond to issues as wide-ranging as affirmative action, women’s rights, social welfare, abortion, foreign policy, and even global warming. Critically, Garcia shows us how our instinctive political tribalism can keep us from achieving stable, functioning societies, and offers solutions for rising above our ancestral past. Dr. Garcia and Dr. Shermer also discuss:
- Trump and other political leaders through the lens of evolutionary psychology
- what ancient fears Trump evokes when he says foreigners are bringing in disease and threaten our safety
- why people tend to prefer politicians who are taller, better looking, and with broader shoulders
- how liberals and conservatives differ in temperament and personality and how this difference plays out in public policy
- the moralistic fallacy and the naturalistic fallacy
- the authoritarian personality and social dominance theory
- why the Left-Right/Liberal-Conservative political spectrum is universal and what deep preferences it represents
- how women and men differ in cognitive styles of thinking, preferences, and career choices
- how PTSD as a real phenomena, especially among returning veterans, but why normal anxiety should not be considered pathological
Hector A. Garcia, Psy.D., is the author of Alpha God: The Psychology of Religious Violence and Oppression. He is an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder in combat veterans. He has published extensively on evolutionary psychology, stress and politics in organizations, and the interplay between war and masculine identity.
Listen to Science Salon via iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and Soundcloud.
This Science Salon was recorded on February 25, 2019.
You play a vital part in our commitment to promote science and reason. If you enjoy the Science Salon Podcast, please show your support by making a donation, or by becoming a patron.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi everyone this is your host Michael Schmer the Science Salon Podcast part of the |
| 0:04.4 | Skeptic Society and Skeptic magazine and one of our many ways of reaching out to as many |
| 0:09.8 | people as we can with our educational mission of promoting science and reason. |
| 0:16.4 | As usual, we support your, appreciate your support for the podcast, |
| 0:19.7 | which you can do through Skeptic.com. |
| 0:21.5 | You can do it via PayPal or Patreon or checks, credit cards. We have been contacted |
| 0:28.1 | by one of the major podcast carriers to bring in advertising and that sort of thing. I'm not going to do that just yet. |
| 0:36.1 | I think we're going to try to monetize this through our normal fundraising that we do at this society and see how that goes. |
| 0:47.3 | Podcasting has really become a major player in the media landscape. |
| 0:52.8 | I have done quite a few as a guest, |
| 0:56.3 | and I do think it's really an amazing way |
| 0:59.9 | to communicate our ideas to many more people at a great depth, much greater depth than we can through |
| 1:08.0 | mainstream media. I learned that just by doing you know podcast like with Joe Rogan where you can dive in for two or three hours on any topics you want and and so our |
| 1:20.3 | podcast has kind of migrated toward doing science and science books, which is kind of how |
| 1:28.9 | we started with the Skeptic Society lecture series at Caltech. |
| 1:32.3 | It was mostly touring authors coming to LA and then |
| 1:35.5 | when we changed it to the science salon live events they were always centered around |
| 1:41.2 | an author's new book and that kind of seems to be our |
| 1:44.9 | niche no one else is really doing that and so every week I bring you an author who |
| 1:51.2 | has a new book we get these books in the mail, a couple a day actually. |
| 1:55.2 | They're starting to pile up in my living room. So my author this week is Hector Garcia, his book is Sex, Power, and Partisanship, |
| 2:06.3 | how Evolutionary Science Makes Sense in our Political Divide. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Shermer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Shermer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.