Could you explain why you hypothesize that opposition to evolutionary psychology stems from the youth of the discipline?
That was knb’s hypothesis, not mine.
Whoops, sorry. Now I feel like an idiot for reasons beyond squandering all my karma on this crusade.
I’ve read Segerstrale. I agree that the opposition to Sociobiology was unjustified. But I still claim that what Buller calls “EP” (as opposed to “ep”) is pseudo-science—not because it tells us something unwelcome about ourselves, but rather because it tells us next to nothing about ourselves.
My impression is just that the epistemic standards in the peer-reviewed evolutionary psychology work I’m familiar with don’t seem obviously worse than the epistemic standards in mainstream sociology or psychology.
Ah! That may explain our disagreement. I don’t know what standards are expected in sociology or psychology. I was thinking in terms of the standards expected in evolutionary biology. I thought I stated that in my initial comment.
But I still claim that what Buller calls “EP” (as opposed to “ep”) is pseudo-science—not because it tells us something unwelcome about ourselves, but rather because it tells us next to nothing about ourselves.
Compounding the problem is the false distinction Buller draws between “Evolutionary
Psychologists” and “evolutionary psychologists.” Buller is a self-proclaimed champion of “evolutionary psychology” and all of his critiques are aimed squarely at “Evolutionary
Psychology.” (It’s noteworthy that evolutionary researchers far-flung from his narrow
“Evolutionary Psychology” also hypothesize that men evolved to prefer attractiveness and women status in mates.) He often criticizes “Evolutionary Psychologists” by using theories and data generated by “evolutionary psychologists.” Yet many of these supposed “alternatives” are already widely accepted by “Evolutionary Psychologists.” But enough with the scare quotes. All of these researchers are part of a large, sprawling, heterogeneous scientific community that includes psychologists, anthropologists, biologists, and others. Like many scientific communities, evolutionary psychology includes a large set of shared assumptions and conclusions, and a healthy number of scientific disputes. Many—if not all—of the alternatives that Buller cites fall into the shared assumptions category.
‘EP’ versus ‘ep’. Our strongest critique concerns Buller’s very strategy.
Because Buller believes that ‘ep’ and ‘EP’ can be neatly distinguished, he
takes his arguments to undermine only EP, while leaving an evolutionary
approach to mind and behavior (ep) largely intact. The trouble is that
‘EP’ and ‘ep’ do not in fact represent independent, isolated groups of
people or schools of thought. Not only do evolutionary psychologists of
all stripes share common professional meetings and publication outlets,
they share a large number of theoretical commitments as well. As we will
explain in more detail below, some of these commitments, which Buller
dismisses as part of ‘EP’, are in fact likely to be crucial for any evolutionary science of the mind. In particular, Buller claims that information-processing mechanisms (or, more specifically, “cortical” mechanisms)
“weren’t shaped by selection over our species’ evolutionary history” (200),
and that “there is no such thing as human nature” (457). But this is
tantamount to rejecting two ideas—the existence of psychological adaptations and the notion of human nature—that are endorsed by evolutionary psychologists of all stripes. To give only one example, researchers
influenced by Boyd and Richerson’s theory of culture (Boyd and Richerson 1985; Richerson and Boyd 2004) take a tendency to imitate prestigious people, sometimes called “prestige-dependent bias,” to be a psychological adaptation (Henrich and Gil-White 2001). While these
researchers would not be classified as ‘EP’ under Buller’s scheme, their
commitments to psychological adaptations and a human nature are just
as much a part of their research enterprise.
What do I think? I think these are rhetorically effective critical reviews. Without reading Buller’s book or any of the reviews by biologists and philosophers of biology, I have no idea whether they are fair reviews.
However, I have read enough by Cosmides, Tooby, and by their critics and defenders to form the opinion that what the critics say about their work is entirely fair.
Whoops, sorry. Now I feel like an idiot for reasons beyond squandering all my karma on this crusade.
I’ve read Segerstrale. I agree that the opposition to Sociobiology was unjustified. But I still claim that what Buller calls “EP” (as opposed to “ep”) is pseudo-science—not because it tells us something unwelcome about ourselves, but rather because it tells us next to nothing about ourselves.
Ah! That may explain our disagreement. I don’t know what standards are expected in sociology or psychology. I was thinking in terms of the standards expected in evolutionary biology. I thought I stated that in my initial comment.
See what you think of Delton, Robertson, and Kenrick’s discussion of “Evolutionary Psychology” vs. evolutionary psychology:
See also Machery and Barrett’s response:
What do I think? I think these are rhetorically effective critical reviews. Without reading Buller’s book or any of the reviews by biologists and philosophers of biology, I have no idea whether they are fair reviews.
However, I have read enough by Cosmides, Tooby, and by their critics and defenders to form the opinion that what the critics say about their work is entirely fair.