Problems for evolutionary psychology (or rather, Pop Evolutionary Psychology)
January 20th 2009 04:22
Evolutionary psychology is the field of psychology that aims to uncover the evolutionary forces that shaped out minds. It has tended to focus upon what sorts of adaptive pressures our ancestors faced and how these pressures moulded the psychological predispositions we have. It is a controversial field, with some scientists enthusiastically embracing it, while others see it as being of relatively little value (and perhaps as representative of what they fear to be a mania towards seeing everything as a Darwinian adaptation, so in that respect it is harmful as well). This article by David J. Buller in Scientific American spells out four fallacies of "Pop Evolutionary Psychology" (Pop EP "holds that the human brain has many specialized mechanisms that evolved to solve the adaptive problems of our hunter-gatherer ancestors"). The author explains why he thinks that this variant of EP is deeply flawed and why EP must strive to become more careful in its analysis of human nature. Certainly it has given me pause, for I had (perhaps naively) presumed that the arguments of Pop EP were quite compelling.
An excerpt: "Some human psychological mechanisms undoubtedly did emerge during the Pleistocene. But others are holdovers of a more ancient evolutionary past, aspects of our psychology that are shared with some of our primate relatives. Evolutionary neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp of Bowling Green State University has identified seven emotional systems in humans that originated deeper in our evolutionary past than the Pleistocene. The emotional systems that he terms Care, Panic and Play date back to early primate evolutionary history, whereas the systems of Fear, Rage, Seeking and Lust have even earlier, premammalian origins."
Incidentally, the above excerpt leads onto a more general point about evolution: the organisms it produces are also always a mixture of old and new. Some features are highly preserved and have changed relatively little over a great expanse of time, while others represent recent modifications. Organisms are hence mosaics of old and new. The notion that all features evolve at a uniform rate in lockstep with each other is a total fallacy.
Continue reading Buller's article here.
An excerpt: "Some human psychological mechanisms undoubtedly did emerge during the Pleistocene. But others are holdovers of a more ancient evolutionary past, aspects of our psychology that are shared with some of our primate relatives. Evolutionary neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp of Bowling Green State University has identified seven emotional systems in humans that originated deeper in our evolutionary past than the Pleistocene. The emotional systems that he terms Care, Panic and Play date back to early primate evolutionary history, whereas the systems of Fear, Rage, Seeking and Lust have even earlier, premammalian origins."
Incidentally, the above excerpt leads onto a more general point about evolution: the organisms it produces are also always a mixture of old and new. Some features are highly preserved and have changed relatively little over a great expanse of time, while others represent recent modifications. Organisms are hence mosaics of old and new. The notion that all features evolve at a uniform rate in lockstep with each other is a total fallacy.
Continue reading Buller's article here.
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