A nice discussion of the problems of Evolutionary Psychology

Here at monkey's uncle, the blog of James Holland Jones, a Stanford anthropologist. Well worth the read. Basically he attacks the presumption that there was some kind of Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness needed to make the rest of the EP argument.

Merry Christmas. Or should I say Happy Holidays, being that there's a war on Christmas?

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Thanks for pointing us in that direction. I thought Buller's arguments have some merit, and especially Buss's grand claims so far failed to convince me. (Best line in his interview with Richard Dawkins: Sooner or later all psychology/sociology departments will have to accept that they're just subsets of EP). But the first load of comments in the SciAm article's comment section was so hypervitriolic, including comparing EP critics to creationists, that I didn't know what to make of it.

^_^J.

Well, psychology in general has a tradition of the theory being way out in front of the empirical data, so why should EP be any different? I would expect that many or maybe even all of the conclusions of EP are wrong as far as the details are concerned, but I think that the overall program is unavoidable. What's that oft-repeated quote about the role of evolution in biology? "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." The problem is simply that psychology is currently still too far removed from the biology, but that is changing rapidly as neuroscientists map out the functioning of the brain. Eventually we will be able to map specific sets of genes to brain structures and behaviors, and to make some estimates as to when those genes became a part of the human genome. This will provide a firmer empirical basis for EP to work with.

Merry Christmas. Or should I say Happy Holidays, being that there's a war on Christmas?

Yes, Virginia, there is a War on Christmas. It is being masterminded by the Department of Neverneverland Security, headed by Ebenezer "Heckuva job, Scroogie" Scrooge, BA Humbug, who is on the verge of declaring "Mistletoe accomplished!"

Merry Antipodean Christmas anyway!

By Ian H Spedding FCD (not verified) on 25 Dec 2008 #permalink

Eventually we will be able to map specific sets of genes to brain structures and behaviors, and to make some estimates as to when those genes became a part of the human genome. This will provide a firmer an empirical basis for EP to work with.

Fixed it for you.

In my opinion the largest threat for California are cataclysms and ecological catastrophes. Not important is how many money we have because one tragedy can us take all.