Adaptive and Maladaptive Traits

My own take on procreative advantage is that sexual attractiveness is adaptive and resource dominance is maladaptive. In fact, we have a pejorative term for attraction to resource dominance, namely, golddigger. Maladaptive tendencies can be overcome in much less than evolutionary time. Let us suppose that only a few wife beaters are left and that cigarette smoking is nearly extinct among our youth, although it's a little hard to tell just what maladaptive tendency cigarette smoking represents if not the death wish.

That said, we know from experience that we can drive out some maladaptive tendencies. Does the absence of a maladaptive trait from some individuals in our species indicate that it can be overcome by everyone? I have run across that idea in my reading lately and it gave me hope. It's resource dominance I had in mind of course; and, the big question is "Is it really absent from myself?" This is no time for fooling. I am betting that it's gone or nearly gone and whatever is left can be suppressed.

Tom Wayburn

"Human nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put here to rise above." - Kathryn Hepburn's character in The African Queen

I like the line but the philosophy won't do.