I agree with Ken's points. And I would add the following: Some of the uneasiness comes from a misunderstanding about the difference between ev psych and behavioural genetics. Ev psych seeks to understand design features that are universal and therefore genetically more-or-less 'fixed" in the human population (although fixed does not necessarily mean environmentally unalterable!!) while behav genetics seeks to understand how genetic differences affect the phenotype in terms of behaviours, illness etc. Both are obviously biological approaches but there is constant confusion between the two.
As well, there is often misunderstanding about the interplay between genes and environment: ev psych is interested in how the same genes can respond to different environments differently - e.g., an adaptation has to respond to the environment in which it finds itself, so you would not expect behaviours to be constant over different environments. E.g., brain contains adaptations for language acquisition and "sorting" sounds into grammar etc; brain responds to the language it hears specifically and child learns any language in pretty much the same way. Some people hold the notion that ev psych is measuring behaviour as the 'only' evidence of psychological adaptation. This is a bit like assuming that we measure how people feel and think only by looking at the movement of their facial muscles. there was a big debate about 20 years ago between "darwinian anthropology' and "ev psyc" if you are interested - see some of the Cosmides and Tooby stuff from the early 1990s. Some people don't like the fact that ev psyc compares humans to our closest relatives. However a close read of some of these comparisons, e,g frans de Waal's work with chimps and bonobos shows a VERY careful analysis and comparison of species - just because some people would like to believe that natural selection somehow doesn't apply to humans because we're special is not a good enough reason not to make those comparisons. Obviously though, they cannot be made without much study and analysis - something that the critics too frequently have not done. Finally, just because something evolved, does not give it any inherent moral superiority, desirability or anything else. It means that in the ancestral environment, that design worked the best in terms of leaving offspring. Natural selection does not have a purpose or a design - it responds to gene frequencies. So if we have an evolved tendency towards some negative behaviour, no ev psychologist is going to argue that that behaviour is 'good" just because it evolved. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't examine it. If we can understand it maybe we have a better chance of changing it. I did all of my graduate work in ev psyc and was often amazed by the professors and graduate students who told me they didn't "believe in ev psyc" or didn't think looking at the evolved design of the human mind could tell us anything interesting about why people behave the way they do - most often without any discernable knowledge of evolutionary theory. So I would treat the misgivings carefully because they are not always informed. And of course it's pretty hard to generalize about an entire approach In my experience, ev psyc is an area that holds great fascination for students. Unfortunately it's also sometimes the area with the worst explanations and discussions in intro psyc textbooks. i think that's because it's very difficult to lay out the logic of essentially an entire field - evolutionary biology - succintly and clearly. Sally Walters capilano u ----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Britt To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 9:21 AM Subject: [tips] Uneasiness with Evolutionary Psychology David Buss wrote a very good summary of the main ideas and some of the recent research in the area of evolutionary psychology in the most recent edition of American Psychologist (The Great Struggles of Life, February-March 2009). It's really quite an interesting article and since I've received a number of emails asking me about evolutionary psychology I thought I would discuss the article in an upcoming podcast. In doing this I don't really want to enter into the debate over religion vs. science (though in some ways I guess it's going to be unavoidable). I do, however, want to make sure I understand the concerns/criticisms/uneasiness some people have with this area of psychology. If I understand it right, some people are concerned about this perspective because, for example, even though animals demonstrate a behavior that is in some way similar to what humans do doesn't mean that the reason animals show this behavior (which is probably related to increasing species' survival) is the same reason humans do it. We shouldn't jump to an evolutionary psychology explanation for every behavior we see. Also, even if the behavior can be shown to evolutionary roots, there may be a concern that some people might use this as an "excuse" to continue doing something that we, as intelligent and caring beings, should be able to discipline ourselves not to do. If I understand these two positions correctly then I think these are valid points. Feel free to expand on this if I'm not getting it correctly. What are some of the other reasons people criticize, or are uncomfortable, with this perspective (aside from the religious issue)? Thanks, Michael Michael Britt [email protected] www.thepsychfiles.com ---To make changes to your subscription contact:Bill Southerly ([email protected]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
