Controversial Issues in Evolutionary Psychology

Abstract

This chapter revisits five of the still smoldering controversies over evolutionary psychology and its discipline sociobiology: selfish genes, the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA), nature versus nurture, massive modularity, and evolutionary psychology's politically incorrect claims. The chapter shows that all scientific criticisms of these five seemingly unrelated controversies derive not from a mindmatter dualism but from a genuine mind-body dualism, dualism evolutionary psychology rejects. Evolutionary psychology proposes that the brain was shaped by the same process and to the same end as the rest of the body. In the analysis, social cognition and behavior do constitute an important subset of evolutionary psychology, and much evolutionary psychology research employs theories such as kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and sexual selection that form the core of sociobiology. A vibrant science of human thought and behavior always be able to question its own premises and is thus utterly unsuited to be that solid base.