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The aim of this paper is to provide non-specialist readers with an introduction to some current controversies surrounding the application of evolutionary theory to human behaviour at the intersection of biology, psychology and anthropology. We review the three major contemporary sub-fields; namely Human Behavioural Ecology, Evolutionary Psychology and Cultural Evolution, and we compare their views on maladaptive behaviour, the proximal mechanisms of cultural transmission, and the relationship between human cognition and culture. For example, we show that the sub-fields vary in the amount of maladaptive behaviour that is predicted to occur in modern environments; Human Behavioural Ecologists start with the expectation that behaviour will be optimal, while Evolutionary Psychologists emphasize cases of 'mis-match' between modern environments and domain-specific, evolved psychological mechanisms. Cultural Evolutionists argue that social learning processes are effective at providing solutions to novel problems and describe how relatively weak, general-purpose learning mechanisms, alongside accurate cultural transmission, can lead to the cumulative evolution of adaptive cultural complexity but also sometimes to maladaptative behaviour. We then describe how the sub-fields view cooperative behaviour between non-kin, as an example of where the differences between the sub-fields are relevant to the economics community, and we discuss the hypothesis that a history of inter-group competition can explain the evolution of non-kin cooperation. We conclude that a complete understanding of human behaviour requires insights from all three fields and that many scholars no longer view them as distinct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a bioeconomics theory of homogeneous middleman groups (HMGs) as adaptive units as well as empirical evidence in the form of a number of historical case studies of HMGs functioning as adaptive units in less-developed economies lacking infrastructure. The evidence presented is not new: most of the case studies have been published [Landa (in Jenkins (Ed.) The informal sector: Including the excluded, 1988)]. What is new, however, is analyzing the phenomena of HMGs in a new way—as adaptive units viewed from a group selection perspective. In doing so, the case studies in this paper present empirical evidence of the existence and importance of group selection in human society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]