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From its beginning, evolutionary psychology (EP) has generated substantial controversy and criticism. Criticisms include testability, cognitive and evolutionary assumptions, importance of non-genetic and non-adaptive explanations, as well as political and ethical issues.

Evolutionary psychologists respond by arguing that many of these criticisms are straw men, are based on a incorrect nature vs. nurture dichotomy, or are based on a misunderstandings of the discipline.

History of the debate

The application of evolutionary theory to the psychology and behavior of other animal species is generally uncontroversial. However, adaptationist approaches to human psychology are contentious, with critics questioning the scientific nature of evolutionary psychology, and with more minor debates within the field itself. The history of debate from the evolutionary psychology perspective is covered in detail in books by Segerstråle (2000) and Alcock (2001). Also see recent overviews of EP with rebuttals to critics in Confer, et al., (2010) , Evolutionary Psychology: Controversies, Questions, Prospects, and Limitations., as well as relevant chapters in D. M. Buss (Ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley), including Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2005). Conceptual foundations of evolutionary psychology Full text, and Controversies surrounding evolutionary psychology by Edward H. Hagen.

The history of the debate from the critics perspective is detailed by Gannon (2002). Key critics of EP include the philosophers of science David Buller author of Adapting Minds, Robert C. Richardson author of Evolutionary Psychology as Maladapted Psychology, and Brendan Wallace, author of Getting Darwin Wrong: Why Evolutionary Psychology Won't Work. Other critics include Neurobiologists like Steven Rose who edited "Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments against Evolutionary Psychology", and biological anthropologists like Jonathan Marks and social anthropologists like Tim Ingold and Marshall Sahlins.

Part of the controversy has consisted in each side accusing the other of holding or supporting extreme political viewpoints: evolutionary psychology has often been accused of supporting right wing politics, whereas critics have been accused of being motivated by Marxist view points.

The debates regarding the validity of evolutionary psychology have been regarded as occasionally quite vicious, with a strong ad hominem component.

The basic theoretical assumptions of the discipline are challenged by its critics. Some theoreticians argue that evolutionary psychology leans on misconceptions of biological and evolutionary theory which affects its claims to scientific validity.

Many of the critiques levelled against evolutionary psychology as a whole, apply correctly to some branches of the discipline, but not to others.

Criticisms of the Innately Modular Mind

Evolutionary psychologists propose that the mind is made up of genetically influenced and domain-specific, mental algorithms or computational modules, designed to solve specific evolutionary problems of the past. Cosmides and Tooby also state in their principles of evolutionary psychology , that “…the brain is a physical system. It functions like a computer,” “…the brain’s function is to process information,” “different neural circuits are specialized for solving different adaptive problems,” and “our modern skulls house a stone age mind.”

Several groups of critics, including psychologists working within evolutionary frameworks, argue that this modular theory of mind does little to explain adaptive psychological traits. Proponents of other models of the mind argue that the computational theory of mind is no better at explaining human behavior than a theory with mind entirely a product of the environment. Even within evolutionary psychology there is discussion about the degree of modularity, either as a few generalist modules or as many highly specific modules.

Wallace (2010) observes that the evolutionary psychologists' definition of 'mind' have been heavily influenced by cognitivism and/or information processing definitions of the mind Critics point-out that these assumptions underlying Evolutionary Psychologists’ hypotheses are controversial and have been contested by some psychologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists. For example, Jaak Panksepp, an affective neuroscientist, states that the apparent modularity of the human mind represents not specially evolved modules but rather the plasticity of the general-purpose brain mechanisms, especially as they relate to ancient special-purpose circuits:

“To create a lasting understanding of ‘human nature’, we must incorporate the lessons from the past half-century of research on subcortical emotional and motivational systems that all mammals share. Seven examples of how a study of these systems can highlight some of the core problems of evolutionary psychology are outlined. From this perspective, the developmental interactions among ancient special-purpose circuits and more recent general-purpose brain mechanisms can generate many of the ‘modularized’ human abilities that evolutionary psychology has entertained. By simply accepting the remarkable degree of neocortical plasticity within the human brain, especially during development, genetically-dictated, sociobiological ‘modules’ begin to resemble products of dubious human ambition rather than of sound scientific reasoning.”

Some commentators, like philosopher David Buller, agree with the general argument that the human mind has evolved over time but disagree with the specific claims evolutionary psychologists make. Buller has argued that the contention that the mind consists of thousands of modules, including sexually dimorphic jealousy and parental investment modules, are unsupported by the available empirical evidence. (But see Daly and Wilson's response to Buller.)

There are alternatives to the "massively modular" view of the mind. He argues that over evolutionary time the mind has gained adaptive advantage from being a general problem solver. The mind, as described by Donald includes module-like "central" mechanisms, in addition to more recently evolved "domain-general" mechanisms. Donald articulates this view in his book "A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness" .

A 2010 review stated that the non-modular theory has several problem: 1. Evolutionary theories using the modular theory have produced testable predictions that have been empirically confirmed; the non-modular theory has produced no such predictions or confirmations. 2. The rapidity of responses such as jealousy due to infidelity indicates a dedicated, instinctive system rather than a general, deliberate, rational calculation of consequences. 3. Reactions may occur instinctively (consistent with modular processing) before a person have learned the knowledge needed for non-modular processing to be able to understand or calculate consequences.

For some research done to address these criticisms, see Daly and Wilson's response to Buller's criticism above, Delton, Robertson, Kenrick (2006) The Mating Game Isn’t Over: A Reply to Buller’s Critique of the Evolutionary Psychology of Mating. , Miele (2006) Evolutionary Psychology is Here to Stay: A Response to Buller. , and Bryant (2006) On Hasty Generalization About Evolutionary Psychology .

With respect to general purpose problem solvers, see Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby (1992) The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and The Generation of Culture for their argument that a purely general problem solving mechanism is impossible to build due to the frame problem.

Learning as evidence against genetic explanations

Evolutionary psychology assumes that particular behavioral traits are hereditary. No adaptive evolution can occur unless a trait is genetic and suitable genetic variation exists within that trait for selection to act. The presence or absence of inherited behavioural traits is no longer a debate within psychology, today's psychologists seek to understand how genetics and environment work together to result in observable behavior. This is often of considerable debate.

Psychologists accept that there is substantial empirical evidence to suggest that there are genetic contributions for many emotional, cognitive and behavioral traits. The discipline of behavioral genetics is devoted to quantifying how much a particular trait is influenced by genetic variation. Much of this research is based on twin and adoption studies. The degree to which genetics matter for a particular trait is an ongoing area of debate. Estimates of the genetic contribution to the variation in a trait are called heritability estimates and are based on systematic collections of large amounts of data (usually of identical and fraternal twins).

Psychologists are interested in understanding differences in human behavior as well as why people in general tend to behave in similar ways (cultural universals).

Most behaviors are acquired via learning (rather than being encoded directly by genes), this is a principle often misunderstood. Many critiques of evolutionary psychology falsely assume that demonstrating learning effects on behavior is a blow to the tenets of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychologists would disagree. Evolutionary psychologists do not deny the importance of learning, but they do seek to understand why some behaviors are more easily learned than others (e.g., certain phobias). For example, if a trait like snake phobia happened to be acquired by imitating others (i.e. children copy the parents), and mothers with snake phobia had more surviving offspring than mothers who did not, then snake phobia would spread in a population. The tendency to easily acquire snake phobia might also be an advantage. Children who did not learn this might not survive as often. The tendency to easily acquire this fear is seen as inborn by most evolutionary psychologists (compared to say a fear of electrical outlets or guns). This example illustrates how nature and nurture work together, and not in opposition.

However, critics have questioned some of the assumptions made by EP, including the supposed 'innateness' of certain phobias. Several authors have pointed out that monkeys raised in captivity show no fear of snakes, though they are capable of learning the fear by vicariously watching a fearful monkey react to the stimulus. Empirical studies have also tested assumptions of innate fear modules. For example, Lipp et al. (2004) conducted experiments to investigate whether there is a preferential processing of fear relevant stimuli (e.g. snakes) compared to neutral stimuli (e.g. mushrooms, flowers) - their findings did not support this hypothesis. Fox, et al. (2007) also conducted a study testing contrasting hypothetically innate fear stimuli (snakes) and ontogenetically learned stimuli (guns); their results did show an enhanced ability to detect potential threats, but that the modern threat was detected as efficiently as those hypothesized to be more innate.

However, other research suggests that while fear of snakes or spiders may not be innate, there is substantial empirical evidence that humans have psychological adaptations that make learning to fear these stimuli more rapid than learning to fear stimuli that were not a threat in ancestral environments, such as flowers (LoBue & Rakison, 2010).

The Reification Fallacy

Some critics, for example Gould, argue that evolutionary psychology regularly commits the reification fallacy; where abstract behaviors are treated as real "objects" within the mind, when there is no sufficient evidence to suppose that such behaviors represent true discreet "traits". The classic example is of IQ, or Intelligence Quotient. An IQ score is a statistical principal component (dubbed g) taken from the scores of several mental tests designed to measure abstract reasoning ability; and many researchers early in the 20th century came to treat this g as a genuine thing within the brain. As g is defined in the field of psychometric testing, however, it refers to a "generalized problem-solving ability."

Psychologists (with the exception of behaviorists) respond that hypothesized psychological traits that cannot be measured directly (personality traits, IQ, etc.) may be described as psychological "constructs." Psychological constructs are theoretical hypotheses about how people differ, or how components of the mind work. The degree to which a construct is accepted in the scientific community depends on empirical research to demonstrate that an interpretive framework has construct validity (especially, predictive validity). Researchers assume that when people differ on a psychological construct, there are indeed underlying neurological differences between them (e.g., between the brains of introverts and extroverts). Other sciences use constructs as well (in physics: atomic theory, string theory, etc.). Thus, if constructs are properly understood, the "reification fallacy" is not a fallacy at all—it is one part of theory creation and evaluation in normal science.

The "Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness"

One method employed by evolutionary psychologists is using knowledge of the environment of evolutionary adaptedness to generate hypotheses regarding possible psychological adaptations.

Part of the critique of the scientific base of evolutionary psychology includes a critique of the concept of the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation (EEA). EP often assumes that human evolution occurred in a uniform environment, and critics suggest that we know so little about the environment (or probably multiple environments) in which homo sapiens evolved, that explaining specific traits as an adaption to that environment becomes highly speculative.

Critics of evolutionary psychology point out that relatively little is known about the Pleistocene. They use this vast uncertainty to argue that the evolutionary context in which humans developed provides only a sparse basis on which evolutionary psychology can operate.

Evolutionary psychologists state that their research is confined to certainties about the past, such as pregnancies only occurring in women, and that humans lived in groups. They posit that there are many environmental features that we can be sure played a part in our species' evolutionary history. They argue that our hunter-gatherer ancestors most certainly dealt with predators and prey, food acquisition and sharing, mate choice, child rearing, interpersonal aggression, interpersonal assistance, diseases and a host of other fairly predictable challenges that constituted significant selection pressures. Knowledge also include things such as nomadic, kin-based lifestyle in small groups, long life for mammals, low fertility for mammals, long female pregnancy and lactation, cooperative hunting and aggression, tool use, and sexual division of labor.

There exists debate within evolutionary psychology about the nature of the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness. Many evolutionary psychologists contend that many aspects of the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness were rather variable. This argument is used to support the notion that the mind consists of not only domain-specific psychological mechanisms but of more domain-general ones as well (that deal with environmental novelty).

"Just-So Stories"

A frequent critique of the discipline is that evolutionary psychology hypotheses are difficult or impossible to adequately test, which would undermine its status as an actual scientific discipline. For example, many current traits likely evolved to serve different functions than they do now, confounding attempts to make backward inferences into history. While evolutionary psychology hypotheses are difficult to test, evolutionary psychologists assert that is not impossible.

Critics argue that many hypotheses put forward to explain the adaptive nature of human behavioural traits are "Just-so stories"; neat adaptive explanations for the evolution of given traits that do not rest on any evidence beyond their own internal logic. They allege that evolutionary psychology can predict many, or even all, behaviours for a given situation, including contradictory ones. Therefore many human behaviours will always fit some hypotheses. Noam Chomsky argued:

"You find that people cooperate, you say, ‘Yeah, that contributes to their genes' perpetuating.’ You find that they fight, you say, ‘Sure, that’s obvious, because it means that their genes perpetuate and not somebody else's. In fact, just about anything you find, you can make up some story for it."

Leda Cosmides argued in an interview:

"Those who have a professional knowledge of evolutionary biology know that it is not possible to cook up after the fact explanations of just any trait. There are important constraints on evolutionary explanation. More to the point, every decent evolutionary explanation has testable predictions about the design of the trait. For example, the hypothesis that pregnancy sickness is a byproduct of prenatal hormones predicts different patterns of food aversions than the hypothesis that it is an adaptation that evolved to protect the fetus from pathogens and plant toxins in food at the point in embryogenesis when the fetus is most vulnerable – during the first trimester. Evolutionary hypotheses – whether generated to discover a new trait or to explain one that is already known – carry predictions about the nature of that trait. The alternative – having no hypothesis about adaptive function – carries no predictions whatsoever. So which is the more constrained and sober scientific approach?"

A 2010 review article describes how an evolutionary theory may be empirically tested: "The researcher first formulates a hypothesis about an evolved psychological mechanism and then generates testable predictions about the attributes or design features of that mechanism that have not previously been discovered or documented". Numerous evolutionary theories have been tested and confirmed or falsified.

In his review article Discovery and Confirmation in Evolutionary Psychology (in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Psychology) Edouard Machery concludes:

"Evolutionary psychology remains a very controversial approach in psychology, maybe because skeptics sometimes have little first-hand knowledge of this field, maybe because the research done by evolutionary psychologists is of uneven quality. However, there is little reason to endorse a principled skepticism toward evolutionary psychology: Although clearly fallible, the discovery heuristics and the strategies of confirmation used by evolutionary psychologists are on a firm grounding."

Ethnocentrism

One aspect of evolutionary psychology is finding traits that have been shown to be universal in humans. Many critics have pointed out that many traits considered universal at some stage or another by evolutionary psychologists and sociobiologists often turn out to be dependent on cultural and particular historical circumstances. Critics allege that evolutionary psychologists tend to assume that their own current cultural context represents a universal human nature; for example, in a review of Steven Pinker's book on evolutionary psychology (The Blank Slate), Louis Menand wrote: "In general, the views that Pinker derives from "the new sciences of human nature" are mainstream Clinton-era views: incarceration is regrettable but necessary; sexism is unacceptable, but men and women will always have different attitudes toward sex; dialogue is preferable to threats of force in defusing ethnic and nationalist conflicts; most group stereotypes are roughly correct, but we should never judge an individual by group stereotypes; rectitude is all very well, but "noble guys tend to finish last"; and so on.".

However, evolutionary psychologists point out that their research actually focuses on commonalities between people of different cultures to help to identify "human psychological nature" and cultural universals. It is not a focus on local behavioral variation (which may sometimes be considered ethnocentric) that interests evolutionary psychologists; rather their focus is to find underlying psychological commonalities between people from various cultures. David Buss, David P. Schmitt, and other evolutionary psychologists are noted for cross-cultural research projects that have gathered massive datasets, with tens of thousands of research participants from around the world, to test EP adaptationist hypotheses. See the above researchers' websites for relevant publications. This research highlights both commonalities and differences between cultures, without suggesting that certain cultures are "better" than others.

Reductionism

Critics view evolutionary psychology as a form of genetic reductionism and determinism

Evolutionary Psychology is grounded on the theory that our psychology is fundamentally based on biology, the composition of our brains. This is a form of reductionism, a research philosophy according to which the nature of complex things can be understood in terms of simpler or more fundamental things (i.e. reduced). Reductionism as applied to consciousness and the brain comes in various forms.

Critics allege that a reductionist analysis of the relationship between genes and behaviour results in a flawed research program and a restricted interpretation of the evidence, creating problems for the creation of models attempting to explain behaviour. For example, Lewontin, Rose & Kamin advocate a "dialectical" interpretation of behaviour that opposes the hierarchical reductionism given by Dawkins, in which "it is not just that wholes are more than the sum of their parts, it is that parts become qualitatively new by being parts of the whole." They argue that reductionist explanations will cause the researcher to miss dialectical ones.

The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has alleged that reductionism is only invoked because EP is a controversial field in itself, Dawkins writes: "'reductionism', like sin, is one of those things only mentioned by people who are against it." The Blind Watchmaker, 1986 p. 13. (Here Dawkins makes a distinction between "direct" and "hierarchical" scientific reductionism: organisms can be described in terms of DNA, DNA in terms of atoms, atoms in terms of sub-atomic particles etc.; but knowledge of sub-atomic particles will not directly explain animal or human behavior, nevertheless, one can make adequate explanations and predictions at higher levels.)

Alternatives to adaptive explanations

Adaptive explanations vs. environmental, cultural, social, and dialectical explanations

A common critique is that evolutionary psychology does not address the complexity of individual development and experience and fails to explain the influence of genes on behavior in individual cases.

Critics assert that evolutionary psychology has trouble developing research that can distinguish between environmental and cultural explanation and adaptive evolutionary explanations. Some studies have been criticized for their tendency to attribute to evolutionary processes elements of human cognition that may be attributable to social processes (e.g. preference for particular physical features in mates), cultural artifacts (e.g. patriarchy and the roles of women in society), or dialectical considerations (e.g. behaviours in which biology interacts with society, as when a biologically determined skin colour determines how one is treated). Evolutionary psychologists are frequently criticized for ignoring the vast bodies of literature in psychology, philosophy, politics and social studies. Both sides of the debate stress that statements such as "biology vs. environment" and "genes vs. culture" amount to false dichotomies, and outspoken critics of sociobiology such as Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose and Leon Kamin helped to popularise a "dialectical" approach to questions of human behaviour, where biology and environment interact in complex ways to produce what we see.

Evolutionary psychologists respond that their discipline is not primarily concerned with explaining the behavior of specific individuals, but rather broad categories of human behaviors across societies and cultures. It is the search for species-wide psychological adaptations (or "human nature") that distinguishes evolutionary psychology from purely cultural or social explanations. These psychological adaptations include cognitive decision rules that respond to different environmental, cultural, and social circumstances in ways that are (on average) adaptive.

EP fully accepts nature-nurture interactionism.

Adaptive explanations vs. other evolutionary mechanisms

Critics point out that within evolutionary biology there are many other non-adaptive pathways along which evolution can move to produce the behaviors seen in humans today. Natural selection is not the only evolutionary process that can change gene frequencies and produce novel traits. Genetic drift refers to random effects resulting from chance variation in the genes, environment, or development. Evolutionary by-products are traits that were not specially designed for an adaptive function, although they may also be species-typical and may also confer benefits on the organism. A "spandrel" is a term coined by Gould and Lewontin (1979a) for traits which confer no adaptive advantage to an organism, but are 'carried along' by an adaptive trait. Gould advocates the hypothesis that cognition in humans came about as a spandrel: "Natural selection made the human brain big, but most of our mental properties and potentials may be spandrels - that is, nonadaptive side consequences of building a device with such structural complexity".

Once a trait acquired by some other mechanism confers an adaptive advantage, as evolutionary psychologists claim that many of our "mental properties and potentials" do, it may be open to further selection as an "exaptation". Critics allege that the adaptive (and exaptive) significance of mental traits studied by evolutionary psychologists has not been shown, and that selection has not necessarily guided the appearance of such traits.

Evolutionary psychologists suggest that critics mischaracterize their field, and that their empirical research is designed to help identify which psychological traits are likely to adaptations, and which are not. For example, see Adaptations, Exaptations and Spandrels, by Buss, Haselton, Shackelford, Bleske and Wakefield. Also see How can we identify psychological adaptations? by Edward H. Hagen, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Berlin.

Political and ethical issues

That human psychology may be determined by our biology, which is shaped by our evolutionary past, is an important idea for those involved in ethics. The implications are as broad and varied as the field of ethics itself.

Free will

Some believe that evolutionary psychology describes factors which limit our free will, in that it can be seen to imply that we behave in ways in which we are ‘naturally inclined’. J. Mizzoni wrote “There are some moral philosophers (such as Thomas Nagel) who believe that evolutionary considerations are irrelevant to a full understanding of the foundations of ethics. Other moral philosophers (such as J. L. Mackie) tell quite a different story. They hold that the admission of the evolutionary origins of human beings compels us to concede that there are no foundations for ethics.”

Critics of this ethical view point out that whether or not a behavioral trait is inherited does not affect whether it can be changed by one's culture or independent choice, and that evolutionary psychology could be discarded in moral and political discussions regardless of whether it is true or not.

However, many psychological scientists argue that the concept of "free will" is more of a philosophic issue than a scientific one, given that it is difficult to experimentally conceptualize or to empirically test. It is also largely a semantic house of mirrors: we feel free (have "free will") when we have the capacity to choose. However, do we have the capacity to choose what we want to choose? (And, if so, can we choose what we want to want to choose, and so on...) EP, as does psychological science in general, operates under the assumption that human behavior has causal roots. Our desires and wants, and our choices, are a complex interaction of biology and environment; we can "feel free" while our behavior is determined. Further, William James (1842–1910) argued that humans have more "instincts" than animals, and that greater freedom of action is the result of having more psychological instincts, not fewer. Daniel C. Dennett explores this idea in his 2003 book Freedom Evolves.

"Is" and "Ought"

Many critics have alleged that evolutionary psychology and sociobiology are nothing more than political justifications for the "status quo." Evolutionary psychologists have been accused of conflating "is" and "ought", and evolutionary psychology has been used to argue against social change (because the way things are now has been evolved and adapted), and to argue against social justice (e.g. the claim that the rich are only rich because they've inherited greater abilities, so programs to raise the standards of the poor are doomed to fail).

In rebuttal, Glenn Wilson, a pioneer of EP, "promoting recognition of the true power and role of instincts is not the same as advocating the total abandonment of social restraint."

Steven Pinker describes two logical fallacies. "The naturalistic fallacy is the idea that what is found in nature is good. It was the basis for Social Darwinism, the belief that helping the poor and sick would get in the way of evolution, which depends on the survival of the fittest. Today, biologists denounce the Naturalistic Fallacy because they want to describe the natural world honestly, without people deriving morals about how we ought to behave -- as in: If birds and beasts engage in adultery, infanticide, cannibalism, it must be OK)."

"The moralistic fallacy is that what is good is found in nature. It lies behind the bad science in nature-documentary voiceovers: lions are mercy-killers of the weak and sick, mice feel no pain when cats eat them, dung beetles recycle dung to benefit the ecosystem and so on. It also lies behind the romantic belief that humans cannot harbor desires to kill, rape, lie, or steal because that would be too depressing or reactionary."

For more discussion of these issues, see Confer, et al., (2010).

See also

• Biopsychiatry controversy

Template:Misplaced Pages-Books

Notes

1. ^ Plotkin, Henry. 2004 Evolutionary thought in Psychology: A Brief History. Blackwell. p.150.
2. Confer, J. C., Easton, J. A., Fleischman, D. S., Goetz, C. D., Lewis, D. M., Perilloux, C., & Buss, D. M. (2010). Evolutionary Psychology: Controversies, Questions, Prospects, and Limitations. American Psychologist, 65, 110-126.
3. ^ Plotkin, Henry. 2004 Evolutionary thought in Psychology: A Brief History. Blackwell. p.149.
4. Segerstråle, Ullica Christina Olofsdotter (2000). Defenders of the truth : the battle for science in the sociobiology debate and beyond. Oxford : Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-850505-1.
5. Theoretical Issues in Psychology: An Introduction. Sage. 2006. pp. 230–1. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
6. Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1994). Origins of Domain Specificity: The Evolution of Functional Organization. In L.A. Hirschfeld and S.A. Gelmen, eds., Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprinted in R. Cummins and D.D. Cummins, eds., Minds, Brains, and Computers. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000, 523-543.
7. Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1992). Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange. In Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby 1992, 163-228.
8. ^ Panksepp, J. & Panksepp, J. (2000). The Seven Sins of Evolutionary Psychology. Evolution and Cognition, 6:2, 108-131.
9. Buller, David J. and Valerie Gray Hardcastle (2005) Chapter 4. "Modularity", in Buller, David J. The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology. The MIT Press. pp. 127 - 201
10. Wallace, B. (2010). Getting Darwin Wrong: Why Evolutionary Psychology Won’t Work. Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic.
11. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1037/a0018413, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1037/a0018413 instead.
12. Buller, David. (2005) Adapting Minds.
13. Lewontin, R.C. "It Ain't Necessarily So"
14. Gould, S.J. (1981) "The Mismeasure of Man"
15. For an outline of the current state of knowledge in this area, see: Mithen, Steven. After The Ice: A Global Human History 20000-5000 BC. Harvard Uni. Press, 2004).
16. The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2005), David M. Buss, Chapter 1, pp. 5-67, Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides
17. Schacter, Daniel L, Daniel Wegner and Daniel Gilbert. 2007. Psychology. Worth Publishers. pp. 26-27
18. "Testing ideas about the evolutionary origins of psychological phenomena is indeed a challenging task, but not an impossible one (Buss, Haselton, Shackelford, Bleske, & Wakefield, 1998; Pinker, 1997b)." Schacter, Daniel L, Daniel Wegner and Daniel Gilbert. 2007. Psychology. Worth Publishers. pp. 26-27
19. Horgan, John (2000) . The Undiscovered Mind: How the Brain Defies Explanation. London: Phoenix. p. 179.
20. http://www.stevens.edu/csw/cgi-bin/blogs/horganism/?p=11
21. Menand, L. (2002) "What Comes Naturally", The New Yorker, 22nd November 2002; available online at http://www.hereinstead.com/sys-tmpl/bmenadonpinker/
22. Buss, D. M. (2011)
23. See Chapter 10 of "Biology, Ideology and Human Behavior: Not In Our Genes" (1984) by Lewontin, Rose & Kamin for a discussion of these issues.
24. "instinct." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 09 Feb. 2011. .
25. Lewontin, Rose & Kamin (1984) "Biology, Ideology and Human Nature: Not In Our Genes", Chapter 10
26. Quote from Stephen Jay Gould, The Pleasures of Pluralism, p.11
27. Mizonni, John. "Ruse's Darwinian ethics and Moral Realism". metanexus.net. Metanexus Institute.
28. ^ Lewontin, R.C., Rose. S & Kamin, L (1984) Biology, Ideology and Human Nature: Not In Our Genes
29. Kohn, A. (1990) The Brighter Side of Human Nature"
30. http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html Cosmides & Tooby, Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer
31. Wilson, G.D. Love and Instinct, 1981.
32. Q&A: Steven Pinker of 'Blank Slate', United Press International, 10/30/2002, http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/books/tbs/media_articles/2002_10_30_upi.html

Further reading

Criticism

Books

• Buller, David. (2005) Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature.
• Ehrlich, P. & Ehrlich, A. (2008). The dominant animal: Human evolution and the environment. Washington, DC: Island Press.
• Fodor, J. (2000). The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology
• Fodor, J. & Piattelli-Palmarini, M. (2011). What Darwin got wrong.
• Gould, S.J. (2002) The Structure of Evolutionary Theory
• Joseph, J. (2004). The Gene Illusion: Genetic Research in Psychiatry and Psychology Under the Microscope. New York: Algora. (2003 United Kingdom Edition by PCCS Books)
• Joseph, J. (2006). The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity, and the Fruitless Search for Genes. New York: Algora.
• Kitcher, Philip. (1985). Vaulting Ambitions: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature. London:Cambridge.
• Kohn, A. (1990) The Brighter Side of Human Nature: Altruism and Empathy in Everyday Life
• Lewontin, R.C., Rose, S. & Kamin, L. (1984) Biology, Ideology and Human Nature: Not In Our Genes
• Malik, K. (2002). Man, beast, and zombie: What science can and cannot tell us about human nature
• Rose, H. and Rose, S. (eds.)(2000) Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology Nova York: Harmony Books
• Richardson, Robert C. (2007). Evolutionary Psychology as Maladapted Psychology
• Sahlins, Marshall. (1976) The Use and Abuse of Biology: An Anthropological Critique of Sociobiology
• Wallace, B. (2010). Getting Darwin Wrong: Why Evolutionary Psychology Won't Work
• McKinnon, S. (2006) Neo-liberal Genetics: The Myths and Moral Tales of Evolutionary Psychology
• Gillette, Aaron. (2007) Eugenics and the Nature-Nurture Debate in the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillanadd on

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

• Buller, D., et al. (2000). Evolutionary psychology, meet developmental neurobiology: Against promiscuous modularity. Brain & Mind, 1(3): 307-325.
• Crane-Seebera, J. & Craneb, B. (2010). Contesting essentialist theories of patriarchal relations: Evolutionary psychology and the denial of history. Journal of Men's Studies, 18(3): 218-237.
• Davies, P. (2009). Some evolutionary model or other: Aspirations and evidence in evolutionary psychology. Philosophical Psychology, 22(1): 83-97.
• Derksen, M. (2010). Realism, relativism, and evolutionary psychology. Theory & Psychology, 20(4): 467-487.
• Derksen, M. (2005). Against integration: Why evolution cannot unify the social sciences. Theory and Psychology, 15(2): 139-162.
• Ehrlich, P. (2003). Genes and cultures: What creates our behavioral phenome? Current Anthropology, 44(1): 87-107.
• Fox, E., Griggs, L., & Mouchlianitis, E. (2007). The Detection of Fear-Relevant Stimuli: Are Guns Noticed as Quickly as Snakes? Emotion, 7:4, 691-696.
• Franks, B. (2005). The role of ‘the environment’ in cognitive and evolutionary psychology. Philosophical Psychology, 18(1): 59-82.
• Gannon, L. (2002). A Critique of Evolutionary Psychology. Psychology, Evolution & Gender, 4.2: 173-218.
• Gerrans, P. (2002). The Theory of Mind Module in Evolutionary Psychology. Biology and Philosophy, 17, 305-321.
• Lipp, O., Waters, A., Derakshan, N., Logies, S. (2004). Snakes and Cats in the Flower Bed: Fast Detection Is Not Specific to Pictures of Fear-Relevant Animals. Emotion, 4:3, 233-250.
• Machery, E. (2007). Massive modularity and brain evolution. Philosophy of Science, 74, p. 825-838.
• McKinnon, S. (2005). On Kinship and Marriage: A Critique of the Genetic and Gender Calculus of Evolutionary Psychology. In: Complexities: Beyond Nature & Nurture, McKinnon, S. & Silverman, S. (Eds); pp. 106–131.
• Panksepp, J., Moskal, J., Panksepp, J., & Kroes, R. (2002). Comparative approaches in evolutionary psychology: Molecular neuroscience meets the mind. Neuroendocrinology Letters, 23(4): 105-115.
• Panksepp, J. & Panksepp, J. (2000). The Seven Sins of Evolutionary Psychology. Evolution and Cognition, 6:2, 108-131.
• Verweij, K., et al. (2010). A genome-wide association study of Cloninger's temperament scales: Implications for the evolutionary genetics of personality. Biological Psychology, 85(2): 306-317.
• Looren de Jong, H. and Steen, W.J. Van der (1998) ‘Biological thinking in evolutionary psychology: rockbottom or quicksand?’, Philosophical Psychology, 11: 183–205.
• Lewontin, R.C. (1998) ‘The evolution of cognition: questions we will never answer’, in D. Scarborough and S. Sternberg (eds), An Invitation to Cognitive Science. Vol. 4: Methods, Models and Conceptual Issues. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 107–32.
• Lloyd, E.A. (1999) ‘Evolutionary psychology: the burdens of proof’, Biology and Philosophy, 14: 211–33.
• Samuels, R. (1998) ‘Evolutionary psychology and the Massive Modularity hypothesis’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 49: 575–602.

Online Articles

• Stephen Jay Gould.Darwinian Fundamentalism Volume 44, Number 10 · June 12, 1997
• David Buller. 2008. Evolution of the Mind: 4 Fallacies of Psychology In Scientific American Magazine - December 19, 2008
• David Buller. 2009. Sex, Jealousy & Violence. A Skeptical Look at Evolutionary Psychology. in Skeptic.
• The Seven Sins of Evolutionary Psychology
• Paul Ehrlich challenges Evolutionary Psychology
• Malik, Kenan. 1998. Darwinian Fallacies. .
• Schlinger Jr, Henry. 1996. How the humans got his Spots. A Critical Analysis of the Just So Stories of Evolutionary Psychology. Skeptic. Vol. 4 No.1, 1996. Full text
• Stephen Jay Gould, "Darwinian Fundamentalism", New York Review of Books June 12 1997
• Smith, E.A., Borgerhoff Mulder, M. and K. Hill (2001). Controversies in the evolutionary social sciences: A guide to the perplexed. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 16(3):128-135. Full text
• Smith, E.A., Borgerhoff Mulder, M. & Hill, K. (2000). Evolutionary analyses of human behaviour: a commentary on Daly & Wilson. Animal Behaviour, 60, F21-F26. Full text
• Wilson, D.S., Dietrich, E., et al. (2003). On the inappropriate use of the naturalistic fallacy in evolutionary psychology. Biology and Philosophy, 18, 669-682. Full text
• Wood, W., & Eagly, A. H. (2002). A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Behavior of Women and Men: Implications for the Origins of Sex Differences. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 699-727.

Rebuttals

Books and book chapters

• Alcock, John (2001). The Triumph of Sociobiology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195163353
• Barkow, Jerome (Ed.). (2006) Missing the Revolution: Darwinism for Social Scientists. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195130027
• Buss, David, ed. (2005) The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology. ISBN 0-471-26403-2.
• Degler, C. N. (1991). In search of human nature: The decline and revival of Darwinism in American social thought. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195077070
• Leger, D. W., Kamil, A. C., & French, J. A. (2001). Introduction: Fear and loathing of evolutionary psychology in the social sciences. In J. A. French, A. C. Kamil, & D. W. Leger (Eds.), The Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, Vol. 47: Evolutionary psychology and motivation, (pp. ix-xxiii). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press
• Pinker, S. (2002). The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Viking.
• Richards, Janet Radcliffe (2000). Human Nature After Darwin: A Philosophical Introduction. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415212441
• Segerstrale, Ullica (2000). Defenders of the Truth: The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192862150

Online Articles

• Confer, J. C., Easton, J. A., Fleischman, D. S., Goetz, C. D., Lewis, D. M., Perilloux, C., & Buss, D. M. (2010). Evolutionary Psychology: Controversies, Questions, Prospects, and Limitations. American Psychologist, 65, 110-126.
• Alas Poor Evolutionary Psychology: Unfairly Accused, Unjustly Condemned. Robert Kurzban's review of the book Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology.
• Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2005). Conceptual foundations of evolutionary psychology. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (pp. 5–67). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Full text
• Tooby, J., Cosmides, L. & Barrett, H. C. (2005). Resolving the debate on innate ideas: Learnability constraints and the evolved interpenetration of motivational and conceptual functions. In Carruthers, P., Laurence, S. & Stich, S. (Eds.), The Innate Mind: Structure and Content. NY: Oxford University Press.
• Controversies surrounding evolutionary psychology by Edward H. Hagen, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Berlin. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (pp. 5–67). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
• Why do some people hate evolutionary psychology? by Edward H. Hagen, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Berlin. (Also see his Evolutionary Psychology FAQ which responds to criticisms of EP.)
• Geher, G. (2006). Evolutionary psychology is not evil! … and here’s why … Psihologijske Teme (Psychological Topics); Special Issue on Evolutionary Psychology, 15, 181-202.
• Liddle, J. R., & Shackelford, T. K. (2009) Why Evolutionary Psychology is “True.” A review of Jerry Coyne, Why Evolution is True. Evolutionary Psychology, 7(2): 288-294
• The Never-Ending Misconceptions About Evolutionary Psychology: Persistent Falsehoods About Evolutionary Psychology by Gad Saad
• Evolutionary Psychology Under Attack by Dan Sperber
• Bryant, G. A. (2006). On hasty generalization about evolutionary psychology. Book Review of Adapting Minds. David J. Buller. American Journal of Psychology, 19(3), 481-487.
• Tybur, J.M., Miller, G.F., & Gangestad, S.W. (2007). Testing the controversy: An empirical examination of adaptationists' attitudes toward politics and science. Human Nature, 18, 313-328

Online videos

• TED talk by Steven Pinker about his book The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
• Margaret Mead and Samoa. Review of the nature vs. nurture debate triggered by Mead's book "Coming of Age in Samoa."
• Secrets of the Tribe Documents the conflicts between cultural and evolutionary anthropologists who have studied the Yanomamo tribes.
• The Norwegian "Brainwash" series examines the very different perceptions and theoretical orientations of cultural determinists and evolutionary adaptationists.

Note: the password to view these is "hjernevask" (no capital letters, no quotes).

* The Gender Equality Paradox

* The Parental Effect

* Violence

* Sex

* Nature or Nurture

v t e Sex differences in humans
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Neuroscience and Psychology	Cognition Coping Emotional expression Aggression Emotional intelligence Empathy Gender empathy gap Intelligence Memory Narcissism Neurosexism Sexuality Age disparity in relationships Attraction Desire Fantasy Jealousy
Sociology	Crime Education in the U.S. Gender inequality Leadership Religion Social capital Social support Sociolinguistics Equality paradox

• Articles with multiple maintenance issues from July 2011
• Evolutionary psychology
• Scientific controversies
• Criticisms