Challenging dangerous ideas: a multi-disciplinary critique of evolutionary psychology (original) (raw)
Related papers
More Misuses of Evolutionary Psychology
Metascience, 2006
In Who's Afraid of Charles Darwin?, Vandermassen argues for two related theses. The first is that it is impossible to formulate or defend a coherent feminist position without assuming something about 'human nature'. The second is that contemporary 'evolutionary psychology' provides the best 'scientific' approach to human nature currently available. She concludes that understanding and using the insights of evolutionary psychology will be vital to feminists. The first of these claims is reasonable, but the suggestion that feminist authors have widely ignored it is not. The second claim is much more problematic-one can be sympathetic to evolutionary theory more generally, and to the claim that human psychological abilities are the product of adaptive evolution, without finding much in contemporary evolutionary psychology to get excited about. Finally, even if one were sympathetic to contemporary evolutionary psychology, it is not at all clear that the 'insights' Vandermassen finds in it will be particularly useful for informing the social and political goals of feminism. Vandermassen's criticisms of 'feminist' arguments against research into gender differences tend towards the grossly unfair. To claim that Helen Longino wants 'to subordinate science to [her] political ends' (p. 53) is simply false. Longino does claim that when there is insufficient 'ordinary' empirical evidence to decide between competing hypotheses, we are likely unable to prevent our political values from guiding our (tentative) choice, and indeed, may be justified in doing so (Science as Social Knowledge, 1990). This position
2005
When it comes to explaining human thought and behavior, the possibility that heredity plays any role at all still has the power to shock. To acknowledge human nature, many think, is to endorse racism, sexism, war, greed, genocide, nihilism, reactionary politics, and neglect of children and the disadvantaged. Any claim that the mind has an innate organization strikes people not as a hypothesis that might be incorrect but as a thought it is immoral to think. Stephen Pinker, THE BLANK SLATE: THE MODERN DENIAL OF HUMAN NATURE 1 I was apprehensive when asked [to direct this project analyzing the current status and implications of work in the area of behavioral genetics]. .. [mostly] because the subject has an ugly history. .. [over time, however, it] became clear that this investigation, believed to be the first of its kind, is necessary if we want to avoid the mistakes of the past, make an impartial assessment of the emerging scientific evidence, and reach valid moral and legal conclusions about the potential applications of the research.
Sociology-the Journal of The British Sociological Association, 2007
Evolutionary psychology represents a major challenge to sociology, since it claims to provide an alternative, more 'objective' account of the human condition and of social problems. It receives widespread media coverage and has a firm hold on the popular imagination. In comparison, sociological accounts of society and identity play only a minor role in public debates. We argue that, as 'public intellectuals', it is the responsibility of sociologists to contest these impoverished representations of social life. In order to do so successfully, it is necessary first to examine the popular appeal of evolutionary psychology, which rests on the narrative strategies employed to link human origins with contemporary social problems, and second, to take up the challenge of engaging with less reductionist scientific accounts of the potential biological basis of society.
The full conference program of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society began on a sunny humid Thursday morning in June in the year 2000 on the Amherst College campus and it didn’t wind down until the following Sunday afternoon. I was privileged to attend presentations by such well-known scholars as Steven Pinker (How the Mind Works), Robert Wright (The Moral Animal), and Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene). As impressive as these well-known scholars were (and there were many lesser-known though just-as-able scholars at the conference) I’d come specifically to attend the panel discussion on the use of evolutionary biology in understanding religion. Dan Kriegman was listed as the organizer and its focus would be Kevin MacDonald’s trilogy on the evolutionary strategy of Judaism... That was the year 2000. In 2020, Charles Murray, in 'Human Diversity, the Biology of Gender, Race and Class' explains: "why there is so little about evolutionary psychology in human diversity." At the end of the introduction to the book, he writes: "Hundreds of millions of years of evolution did more than shape human physiology. It shaped the human brain as well. A comparatively new discipline, evolutionary psychology, seeks to understand the links between evolutionary pressures and the way humans have turned out. Accordingly, evolutionary psychology is at the heart of explanations for the differences that distinguish men from women and human populations from each other. Ordinarily, it would be a central part of my narrative. But the orthodoxy has been depressingly successful in demonizing evolutionary psychology as just-so stories. I decided that incorporating its insights would make it too easy for critics to attack the explanation and ignore the empirical reality. I discuss some evolutionary material in my accounts of the peopling of the Earth and the source of greater male variance. That's it, however, ignoring the rest of the fascinating story." The public demonizing of evolutionary psychology began at HBES 2000 and has persisted for over two decades. I wrote a journal of the event, not because I attended as a journalist, but because I was concerned the event would be forgotten.
Sociological Spectrum, 2014
ABSTRACT Sociologists have drawn considerable criticism over the years for their failure to integrate evolutionary biological principles in their work. Critics such as Stephen Pinker (200254. Pinker , Steven. 2002 . The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature . New York : Penguin Books . View all references) have popularized the notion that sociologists adhere dogmatically to a “blank slate” or cultural determinist view of the human mind and social behavior. This report assesses whether sociologists indeed ascribe to such a blank slate view. Drawing from a survey of 155 sociological theorists, we find the field about evenly divided over the applicability of evolutionary reasoning to a range of human tendencies. Although there are signs of a shift toward greater openness to evolutionary biological ideas, sociologists are least receptive to evolutionary accounts of human sex differences. Echoing earlier research, we find political identity to be a significant predictor of sociologists' receptiveness. We close by cautioning our colleagues against sociological reductionism and we speculate about the blank slate's political-psychological appeal to liberal-minded social scientists.