Reply to Mohlenhoff et al.: Human behavioral ecology needs a rethink that niche-construction theory can provide

Abstract

In their response to my recent PNAS article (1), Mohlenhoff et al. (2) embrace a view of optimal foraging theory (OFT) and its umbrella discipline, human behavioral ecology (HBE) grounded in standard evolutionary theory (SET). According to this view, anthropogenic environmental enhancements are no different from other environmental perturbations that alter selective pressures and induce adaptive behavioral responses. This perspective may explain why, as Mohlenhoff et al. (2) note, researchers working within this framework invariably ignore niche-constructing behaviors in explanations of initial domestication. Following SET, the source of environmental change is of less import than the resultant adaptive behavioral responses. These responses are framed, moreover, within a general theory of human behavior that dismisses human agency as “one of an array of historical processes or proximal mechanisms” (3) that fail to rise to the level of ultimate causes of evolution. Identifying ultimate causes of evolutionary change, following this logic, is restricted to demonstrating how “natural selection … shapes the way people make decisions” (4).

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