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Johan Bolhuis in a recent Science book review:
Richardson … follows arguments by Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin that natural selection, although of crucial importance, is not the only factor in evolution. The main problem with evolutionary psychology is that it usually does not consider alternative explanations but takes the assumption of adaptation through natural selection as given. … Richardson concludes that we simply lack the historical evidence for a reconstruction of the evolution of human cognition. … Richardson rightly suggests that paleontologists are unlikely to unearth the evidence that can inform us about the social structure of our ancestral communities.
I think one can go a step further. Even if we would be able to muster the evidence needed for an evolutionary psychological analysis of human cognition, it would not tell us anything about our cognitive mechanisms. The study of evolution is concerned with a historical reconstruction of traits. It does not, and cannot, address the mechanisms that are involved in the human brain. Those fall within the domains of neuroscience and cognitive psychology. In that sense, evolutionary psychology will never succeed, because it attempts to explain mechanisms by appealing to the history of these mechanisms.
What is the implicit time scale for these claims? We are "unlikely to unearth the evidence" in – a decade? A century? Never? And what should we believe until then? Bolhuis may seem to advocate the "rigorous" position of for now acting as if we knew nothing about the origins of our mental tendencies. But in practice I think this reduces to the far-less-rigorous position of retaining our ordinary intuitive presumptions about this topic until we face overwhelming contrary evidence.
Never Is A Long Time
in practice I think this reduces to the far-less-rigorous position of retaining our ordinary intuitive presumptions about this topic
Maybe that's true for parts of the general public. But not at all for psychologists. Cognitive psychology has made huge advances in understanding how the mind works - but for some reason, the public only ever wants to hear about brain scans and evolutionary psychology.
wolf:100% agree with your analysis.Our brain is shaped to provide evolutionary advantage. The ability to learn the things good and well, which happen to be crucial for the survival of our (individual, both ways) genes at large. There's good slack in that requirement. Humans have gone the way of understanding (everything they can do, we can do meta :) in a way probably unparalleled by any other species in our biosphere. We are better at abstracting than all our relatives (the rest of live on earth). But all the reflection we've got only allows us to intellectually transcend our evolutionary past. With a bit of education, that one's quite easy (well, for us). So far, so good. The problem lies in emotionally transcending our past. That one is nigh impossible, I fear. But we are working on the problem... =)