human-nature | At the end of The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
wrote: "In the distant future I see open fields for far more important
researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation. . . Light will be
thrown on the origin of man and his history."1 It took more than 100
years but, in the closing decades of the 20th century, Darwin's theory of
evolution by natural selection began to be applied to minds, brains and
behaviour. "Evolutionary psychology" argues that the mind is a
collection of special-purpose software designed by natural selection to solve
the problems of survival and reproduction that faced our ancestors -- problems
such as finding food, picking suitable habitats, attracting mates, learning a
language and navigating the social world.2
However, this new development is not without its critics. Alas,
Poor Darwin -- a collection of essays edited by Hilary and Steven Rose --
bring these critics together to argue that evolutionary psychology is a
"fashionable ideology" whose adherents are "fundamentalists"
who promote "simple-minded", "socially irresponsible",
"culturally pernicious" explanations of human behaviour that rest on
"shaky empirical evidence, flawed premises and unexamined political
presuppositions".
Many chapters in Alas, Poor Darwin repeat the
accusations that evolutionary psychology is reductionist, determinist and
adaptationist -- "accusations" that have been made and dealt with many
times before.3 Other chapters misidentify evolutionary psychology with the
theory of memes,4 or criticise versions of evolutionary psychology that no one
in the field would recognise or defend.5 For these reasons, this review will not
look at each chapter in detail.6 Instead, after briefly introducing evolutionary
psychology, the review will look at the Roses' five main "arguments
against" it, and will then consider the Roses' account of the politics of
the discipline.
