The Debate on Evolutionary Psychology
Nigel Nicholson (2005) addresses a list of concerns that various authors have raised about Evolutionary Psychology (EP). Nicholson's article was written in response to a "vituperous debate" in Human Relations (see Sewell, 2004; Markoczy & Goldberg, 2004) . EP tends to raise hackles (my own included) with opponents referring to the framework as "Flintstones psychology" and proponents accusing these opponents of creationism. Nicholson lays out seven points that he calls the "road of the EP argument", wondering where opponents of EP would like to "get off."
Ouch. Yeah, I'm guilty. I have trouble with #2 and #3. I also think that #6 is a valid concern for at least some of the proponents of EP. A fair amount of EP seems to be published as justification for sexist and racist propaganda, and that understandably pisses me off. The final point, though, is the one that concerns me most. Even in attempting to write this paragraph, I'm having a hard time not slipping into the dichotomist framework. Yes, clearly there are environmental influences on human behavior, and I don't think that EP is arguing that there aren't.
Damn it, the whole nature vs. nurture argument is too deterministic for me in general. I was spending a bit too much energy fretting over this over last weekend. I did come to the conclusion that humans are pretty damn neat for being able to self-nurture; we can decide what traits and skills in ourselves we want to develop. Although that's internally motivated, I think it's still arguably an environmental effect.
- "Homo Sapiens is an animal species"
- "Whatever DNA is favourable to survival and reproduction will be replicated - being extended to human behaviour as well as physical morphology"
- "Psychological predispositions are neurologically constituted."
- Rejecting the notion that EP depends on "panadaptationism" (finding an adaptive logic for every aspect of a phenotype)
- Rejecting the notion that "cultural evolution has superseded natural selection and sexual selection as explanations of human relations and institutions"
- Rejecting the notion that EP "attempts to reconstruct Stone Age conditions"
- Rejecting the dichotomy of nature vs. nurture - "either we are biologically determined or we are social constructed."
Ouch. Yeah, I'm guilty. I have trouble with #2 and #3. I also think that #6 is a valid concern for at least some of the proponents of EP. A fair amount of EP seems to be published as justification for sexist and racist propaganda, and that understandably pisses me off. The final point, though, is the one that concerns me most. Even in attempting to write this paragraph, I'm having a hard time not slipping into the dichotomist framework. Yes, clearly there are environmental influences on human behavior, and I don't think that EP is arguing that there aren't.
Damn it, the whole nature vs. nurture argument is too deterministic for me in general. I was spending a bit too much energy fretting over this over last weekend. I did come to the conclusion that humans are pretty damn neat for being able to self-nurture; we can decide what traits and skills in ourselves we want to develop. Although that's internally motivated, I think it's still arguably an environmental effect.