Randy Thornhill

Randy Thornhill (born 1944) is an American entomologist and evolutionary biologist. He is a professor of biology at the University of New Mexico, and was president of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society from 2011 to 2013.

Life

Thornhill was born in Alabama in 1944. When he was 12, his mother introduced him to Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, which encouraged his later interest in human evolution.

He received a BS in Zoology from Auburn University in 1968, an MS in entomology from Auburn University in 1970, and a PhD in Zoology from the University of Michigan in 1974. His doctoral thesis discussed the evolutionary ecology of Mecoptera insects. He was formerly married to fellow researcher Nancy Thornhill.

Work

Thornhill's interests lie in the evolution and ecology of animal social psychology and behavior, as well as human behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology. His work has been featured in many newspapers, magazines, television shows and radio programs, They argue that the capacity for rape is either an adaptation or a byproduct of adaptive traits such as sexual desire and aggressiveness. The work provoked a major controversy. Thornhill received several death threats, and was assigned a campus police officer to escort him to and from class. to which Thornhill responded.

Since 2005, Thornhill has proposed that many human values evolved to protect against pathogens.