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Reflections, Criticisms, and Future Research

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The Parasite-Stress Theory of Values and Sociality

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Abstract

The overall goal of our book is to create a synthesis or unity, based on the parasite-stress theory of values/sociality, of many topics that traditionally have been viewed and studied as distinct. The book presents the utility of the parasite-stress theory for unification of areas of research and knowledge ranging from parasitology, immunology, moral systems, civil conflict, governmental systems, family life, sexual behavior, dispersal patterns, personality, economics, violence, religious commitment, biodiversity, and so on. The book supports the claim of the scientific revolution that the realm of explanation is small—diverse and seemingly unconnected parts of nature can be unified by a few shared and basic causes. We hypothesize that emancipation of people from infectious diseases not only will reduce mortality and morbidity and increase liberalism and associated egalitarianism, but also will increase the frequency of scientifically encompassing ideas. We address the societal benefits and costs of emancipating people from infectious diseases. Costs are increased autoimmune disease associated with evolutionarily novel low levels of infectious, commensal and mutualistic organisms encountered by children during their development and the exhaustion of nonrenewable energy for the future coinciding with technological and economic productivity. We respond to a range of criticisms of the parasite-stress theory of values or its claimed empirical support. We conclude that the criticisms to date do not falsify the theory, moderate its application to any of the topics it purports to explain, or question the empirical support of the theory. Numerous future research directions and associated hypotheses are presented.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Randy Thornhill

  2. Department of Psychology, The University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Corey L. Fincher

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Thornhill, R., Fincher, C.L. (2014). Reflections, Criticisms, and Future Research. In: The Parasite-Stress Theory of Values and Sociality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08040-6_14

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