What is the most common error regarding explanations of human behavior that persists today?
There are really two errors. Without question, the most important one is the reluctance to ask the question, ‘Why?’ Why do humans persist in behaving in recognized destructive ways at the individual level? Pick up 5 journals on human behavior and in one of them is the casual premise that some particular universal human behavior starts de novo as such. My view is that this source aversion anticipates the political tensions associated with academic longevity and brotherhood, the ecology in which essentially all thinkers in this field prosper and feed their families. The second serious error is the recurrent practice of (reflexly) attributing common antisocial behaviors to environmental circumstances, whether it is genocide, racism, tribalism, juvenile delinquency, adolescent ennui, rape, drug addiction, etc. As in, ‘John is a racist because his parents are racists’. Or, ‘People often commit suicide that are despondent over an emotional loss.’ Or, despite thousands of examples of successf
