(Note: This post have been extensively updated since my original posting.)
And, a blog post by Ed Clint at Skeptic Ink that indulges in over-the-top defense of not just the 25 percent or so of evolutionary psychology study that's legit, but the whole field, Pop Ev Psych and all, doesn't make itself right by totally unsubstantiated claims.
First, the idea of a single Environment of Evolutionary Adaptiveness is not scientifically falsifiable or testable. Legit Ev Psych would be better off junking the idea entirely. This, the idea of an EEA, is usually a time-based claim that human psychology massively evolved in the Pleistocene.
Bullshit. On several counts.
Humans rely on vision more than any other sense, and the last major evolution in vision was the re-evolution of a third cone cell for trichromatic vision a couple of million years before hominids evolved, but arguably more important than just about any evolution that happened within the genus Homo within the Pleistocene.. On the other hand, humans as social animals are hugely dependent on language, which evolved just 50,000 years ago, roughly. (I had previously, in the emotional heat of the first writing, credited re-evolution of trichromatic vision to hominids and not primate ancestors, and apologize for the mistake.)
Beyond that is the claim that hominids were hunter-gatherers during this time.
More bullshit. We were usually scavenger-gatherers. Much less "noble." It's quite likely that we didn't become hunter-gatherers until after the invention of fire, and then cooking, which has been postulated as a major factor in the evolution of homo sapiens, and not just hominids in general.
Related to that, we can't, as of now, and likely ever, due to the rarity of brain imprint fossilization, to say nothing of how little such imprints on the inside of skulls can actually tell us anyway, point to one time period in human history and say evolutionary development related to human psychology was either more critical at this point or more rapid at this point.
Again, that's not testable now and probably never will be.
Beyond that, there's a variety of hominid species within the Pleistocene. So, there's massive imprecision there, as well as a "confounding" of homo sapiens and predecessor species.
A variety of hominids cover that 2 million year period. Can psychological evolution of homo sapiens really be explained by psychological evolution of homo erectus? Would you explain the psychology of the modern horse in terms of Eohippus, or even something halfway between?
Beyond that, here's a way of putting it by analogy.
As long as legitimate evolutionary psychology remains wedded to the concept of the EEA as a lynchpin of theorizing, it's like psychology was 50 years ago, when behavioralism was still "in the saddle." Or 70 years ago, when Freudianism still ruled.
That's how scientific the EEA is. Period. It's about one or two steps above junk science. If that.
Oh, and commenters? Rather than talk about my attitude, tell me where I'm wrong, especially about the EEA. Tell me where, since 2009 and Buller's crushing response in Scientific American, he's been proven wrong. Or, per my own observations, tell me you can view the speed of evolution as uniform over the entire Pleistocene, and uniform from earlier hominids to humans.
As for doing comparative study with our primate kin, like chimps and bonobos? We may know how their brains or their genes evolved since our common-ancestor split, but we have no idea of how their culture evolved, nor do we have any idea of how various epigenetic influences affected their genetic expression. And, in both cases, again, we likely never will. (And, as the recent history of Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, and older history of primate research has shown, sometimes, "detachment/attachment" issues get in the way of research.)
That's why, within legit Ev Psych, the most acceptable claims are the ones that are, in general, the most narrowly stated.
For more on my thoughts on the subject in general, here's the link to my post tag for Pop Evolutionary Psychology, and for Evolutionary Psychology. (Posts may have some overlap, being tagged for both.)
Second, contra claims in that blog post (linking to the Center for Evolutionary Psychology) that David Buller, the leading critic of over-the-top claims of Ev Pysch, Pop or otherwise, have been refuted? Simply not true. In 2008, after the last serious attempt at refutation, Buller crushed his critics. Period. End of story. Since then, they've remained shut up.
And, I'm not the only skeptical type to find Watson largely on target. Read James Croft.
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| Proof that Atheist Plusers don't do criticism well? |
That said, regular readers of my blog know that I have nothing but scorn for Atheist Plusers, especially the likes of Rebecca Watson, even more than for "old" Gnu Atheists. In fact, I have blogged specifically about the start of the "pluser movement."
Bottom line? Watson is a twit aspiring for intellectual pretensions. "Lucky" for her, she hit gold in stumbling on something that to some degree (Randy Tanehill and the adaptiveness of rape, anybody) halfway fit her concerns about sexism, even if she did crib all her arguments. It's too bad that there's not a better refutation of Watson at SkepticInk than this one, which is, in its last part, worthy of ridicule itself. And, so, Rebecca winds up with a new tar baby.
(And, if any of the commenters so far object to my attitude toward Watson, not Pop Ev Psych, I'm not even debating you. She "lifted" her comments on the blog via some cheap Googling.)
And, great, or "great." Stephanie Zvan has jumped in the fray; nth-wave feminism tidal wave ahead. That's what's behind the picture just above.
On the third hand, one can criticize both Watson and people who skirt too close to Pop Ev Psych. If it's Rebecca Watson vs. Ed Clint, and somebody's trying to make me take a Hobson's choice, I want the deck reshuffled.
More below the fold, mainly back to my thoughts on legitimate evolutionary psychology and what the field needs to do to become more legitimate.
