{"id":6277,"date":"2023-04-13T09:49:33","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T14:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/?p=6277"},"modified":"2023-04-13T17:20:09","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T22:20:09","slug":"the-coming-of-age-of-evolutionary-psychology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/2023\/04\/13\/human-nature\/the-coming-of-age-of-evolutionary-psychology\/","title":{"rendered":"The Coming of Age of Evolutionary Psychology"},"content":{"rendered":"

That inimitable patron of felines the world over, Prof. Jerry Coyne, recently posted a piece entitled, \u201cEvolutionary psychology for the tyro<\/a>\u201d at his \u201cWhy Evolution is True<\/a>\u201d website. It summarizes a defense of the field in a series of four essays (here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>) by Prof. Laith Al-Shawaf<\/a> of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. The attacks on the field he addresses are the usual Blank Slate canards about \u201cjust so stories,\u201d \u201cgenetic determinism,\u201d etc. that have long been familiar to anyone with a passing interest in the field. They have never risen above the level of strawman arguments, but Al-Shawaf does a more thorough job of demolishing them then I have seen elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Why these singular attacks on a particular branch of psychology? Prof. Coyne summarizes the reason nicely in his final paragraph:<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s your evolutionary psychology primer. The articles are short; I\u2019d recommend reading one at bedtime each night. They will serve as your Pasteur-ian inoculation against the nipping of rabid dogs who know nothing about modern evolutionary psychology but oppose it on ideological grounds. And those grounds must surely involve the \u201cprogressive\u201d idea that humans are infinitely malleable in behavior. Unfortunately, as the Communist experiment revealed, that\u2019s not true.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To really understand what\u2019s going on here, you need some historical background. Evolutionary psychology is the field most closely associated with the study of innate genetic influences on human behavior, or \u201chuman nature,\u201d if you will. For a period of more than half a century the academic and professional \u201cexperts\u201d in psychology denied the very existence of human nature, substituting ideological dogmas of the type alluded to by Prof. Coyne for science. In the process they raised an insuperable barrier to any attempt by our species to achieve self-understanding. This episode is commonly referred to as the \u201cBlank Slate.\u201d<\/p>\n

This \u201ccrude\u201d version of the Blank Slate finally collapsed under the weight of its own absurdity, thanks largely to the efforts of an outsider, a \u201cmere playwright\u201d by the name of Robert Ardrey<\/a>, who wrote a series of popular books revealing to lay people what was going on in the behavioral \u201csciences,\u201d making the behavioral \u201cscientists\u201d a laughingstock in the process. Ardrey’s role is a salient fact of the history of the affair that will never be recorded in the standard textbooks. It is too embarrassing to the academic tribe to admit the truth. Be that as it may, it is one of the few instances in the last half a century in which the \u201cwoke\u201d Left suffered a major defeat. Of course, that hardly means they\u2019ve given up. They\u2019ve been forced to admit that innate human behavioral traits do exist, but according to the new, \u201crevised\u201d version of the Blank Slate, it doesn\u2019t matter. Our species is still sufficiently \u201cmalleable\u201d to be a perfect fit for whatever utopia happens to strike their fancy.<\/p>\n

In large measure, the field of evolutionary psychology has \u201cadapted\u201d to the prevailing ideological winds. After all, the woke Left has virtually absolute control of the academy, and can deny tenure, professional advancement, and even continued employment to anyone who defies them. As a result, the relevant journals have all kinds of articles about human sexual behavior, as if we were in danger of forgetting how to reproduce, and other subjects that don\u2019t tread on the toes of those in power, but little on matters of somewhat greater relevance to the survival of our species such as the influence of ingroup\/outgroup behavior on warfare and ideological conflict, territoriality, and the darker aspects of human moral behavior. In spite of that, the Left remains deeply suspicious of the field, and continues to attack it with the same old, debunked arguments they’ve been trotting out for the last fifty years. The series of articles alluded to by Prof. Coyne \u201cpounds the rubble\u201d of these arguments and is certainly useful to anyone with an open mind on the subject.<\/p>\n

However, anyone who thinks that the scales will suddenly fall from the eyes of the Blank Slaters themselves on reading them is dreaming. The fantasy that rational argument is all that\u2019s necessary to defeat the Blank Slaters and Woke leftists in general is a major reason why our conservatives have lost every major battle with these master manipulators of moral emotions for decades. They have never been influenced by rational argument, and the very attacks that Prof. Al-Shawaf alludes to were never advanced in good faith to begin with. All of the old, familiar canards he mentions in the first of the four papers and addresses in detail in the other three were never anything more than attacks on strawmen. They are directed at imaginary opinions that no serious evolutionary psychologist ever had to begin with.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most hackneyed strawman of all is the claim that evolutionary psychology is just a collection of \u201cjust so stories.\u201d This pet argument of such high priests of the Blank Slate as Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould is absurd on the face of it. The question the debate is actually about is the very existence of what is commonly referred to as \u201chuman nature,\u201d or innate behavioral traits that have a significant influence on human behavior. The fact of its existence has been documented in human history and described in our literature for the last five thousand years. \u00a0Darwin himself explored it in detail in his \u201cThe Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals<\/a>,\u201d a book that the Blank Slaters were always careful not to mention. The claim that the common aspects of human behavior that, as Darwin noted, can be observed in diverse cultures across the entire planet, are due to innate mental traits is the only rational argument that has been advanced to explain them. It is anything but a \u201cjust so story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let us consider the kind of \u201cscientific\u201d arguments the Blank Slaters themselves advanced against this \u201cjust so story.\u201d Blank Slate stalwart Ashley Montagu was the self-appointed \u201cvoice of science\u201d back in the sixties and seventies. He appeared on the Johnny Carson show and was celebrated in many other public and academic venues. Here\u2019s what he had to say about the subject:<\/p>\n

\u2026man is man because he has no instincts, because everything he is and has become he has learned, acquired, from his culture, from the man-made part of the environment, from other human beings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and,<\/p>\n

In fact, I also think it very doubtful that any of the great apes have any instincts. On the contrary, it seems that as social animals they must learn from others everything they come to know and do. The capacities for learning are simply more limited than those of Homo sapiens<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anyone who thinks that such Blank Slate imbecilities were limited to Montagu is invited to read \u201cIn Search of Human Nature,\u201d by Carl Degler, or \u201cThe Blank Slate,\u201d by Steven Pinker. As documented by Degler, they even believed that sex was purely a \u201clearned behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

So much for the claim that the very existence of human nature is a \u201cjust so story.\u201d What about the various theories that have been advanced suggesting how the various aspects of it may have evolved. In every other branch of science one can mention these are referred to as hypotheses. They are a fundamental aspect of all science, and serve as a starting point for the experimental and theoretical investigations designed to determine whether they are accurate or not. The claim that, when it comes to evolutionary psychology, they are \u201cjust so stories\u201d is dishonest on the face of it.<\/p>\n

Al-Shawaf also mentions that old chestnut, \u201cgenetic determinism,\u201d in the first paper. According to this favorite conceit of the Blank Slaters, advocates of the existence of human nature are all supposed to believe that human beings are as rigidly programmed by their \u201cinstincts\u201d as if they were so many ants or bees. Another obvious strawman argument, it attacks a nonexistent opponent. I\u2019ve read a great deal of the relevant literature, and have never run across a genuine \u201cgenetic determinist.\u201d If they exist at all, they must be as rare as hen\u2019s teeth.<\/p>\n

Also mentioned in the first paper is the canard that evolutionary psychologists believe that everything is an adaptation. Supposedly, they ignore such things as \u201cspandrels\u201d and \u201cexaptations.\u201d<\/a> To grasp the absurdity of this claim, a bit of historical background is necessary. See, for example, the chapter in Ullica Segerstrale\u2019s \u201cDefenders of the Truth<\/a>\u201d entitled, \u201cAssault on Adaptationism.\u201d Originally concocted by Gould and Lewontin in a paper entitled, \u201cThe Spandrels of San Marco<\/a>,\u201d it was never anything more substantial than an attempt to throw dust in the eyes of their opponents. As with the other arguments described above, it was irrelevant to the central thesis of evolutionary psychology, the very existence of innate behavioral traits. Rather, it was an attempt to discredit that thesis by association by advancing the claim that the advocates of human nature were guilty of \u201cbad science.\u201d<\/p>\n

The term \u201cspandrels\u201d in biology refers to features that did not arise as adaptations through natural selection but rather as side effects of adaptive processes and that have been co-opted for a biological function. As such, their existence has been noted and taken for granted by biologists since Darwin\u2019s day. Another classic strawman, no serious evolutionary psychologist ever disputed their existence. If a trait that exists by virtue of natural selection promotes the survival and reproduction of the species involved, it will continue to exist regardless of whether one chooses to call it an adaptation, a spandrel, or an exaptation, and vice versa. One can count the fact that Gould and Lewontin got such mileage out of this non-argument as one of the more remarkable absurdities of scientific history.<\/p>\n

So much for the credibility of the arguments addressed by Prof. Al-Shawaf. Prof. Coyne has it right. In the end they are nothing but, \u201c\u2026the nipping of rabid dogs who know nothing about modern evolutionary psychology but oppose it on ideological grounds. And those grounds must surely involve the ‘progressive’ idea that humans are infinitely malleable in behavior. Unfortunately, as the Communist experiment revealed, that\u2019s not true.\u201d It\u2019s unfortunate that the advocates of evolutionary psychology are so timid about pointing this out, but understandable, nonetheless. The woke Left controls the academy and is quite capable of derailing the career of anyone who defies them.<\/p>\n

In short, the Blank Slate is still with us. Its advocates have just become a bit more circumspect than they were in the day of such \u201cscientists\u201d as Ashley Montagu. Instead of blatantly denying the existence of something any child is aware of, they just keep the field on a tight leash. However, good work continues to slip through the cracks on subjects more relevant to the human condition than abstruse aspects of our sexual behavior. It just takes a little effort to find it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tTweet<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That inimitable patron of felines the world over, Prof. Jerry Coyne, recently posted a piece entitled, \u201cEvolutionary psychology for the tyro\u201d at his \u201cWhy Evolution is True\u201d website. It summarizes a defense of the field in a series of four essays (here, here, here and here) by Prof. Laith Al-Shawaf of the University of Colorado … Continue reading “The Coming of Age of Evolutionary Psychology”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[46,101,181,411,105,28,208,66],"tags":[99,280],"class_list":["post-6277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amity-enmity-complex","category-anthropology","category-blank-slate","category-darwin","category-evolutionary-psychology-2","category-human-nature","category-marxism","category-psychology","tag-evolutionary-psychology","tag-human-nature-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwEq0-1Df","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6277"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6282,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6277\/revisions\/6282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}