New Lords and Big Idea #179 is Evolutionary psychology

A soon to be Lord

Now many consider that the UK (and NI)'s House of Lords is a bit of an anachronism, certainly Nick Clegg's Lib-Dems do but despite this it continues to act as a holding point for legislation allowing some fine tuning and consideration after the Commons have had their say.
So periodically fresh blood is introduced in the HoL and yesterday it was announced that in the latest influx will be Nicholas Bourne (my brother)  -well done Nick thoroughly deserved.

Crofton's big Idea Number 179 is Evolutionary psychology

An existing one

Like evolution generally the view here is that we adapt to the prevailing conditions to optimise our life chances- Language is an example that Evolutionary Psychologists use to indicate what happens - i.e. language benefits the human race and becomes part of our evolution.

Culture can be seen as something of an 'obstacle' within this model and individual languages are considered (to an extent) as cultural constructs.

If you've been worrying about the lack of Melvyn (Lord) Bragg here's a podcast on the subject of Evolutionary psychology from the marvellous  In our time from the BBC .
Here's one of many videos on the subject...