Criticism Of Evolutionary Psychology
From its beginning, evolutionary psychology (EP) has generated substantial controversy and criticism. Criticisms include 1) disputes about the testability of evolutionary hypotheses, 2) alternatives to some of the cognitive assumptions (such as massive modularity) frequently employed in evolutionary psychology, 3) claimed vagueness stemming from evolutionary assumptions (e.g. uncertainty about the environment of evolutionary adaptation, EEA), 4) differing stress on the importance of non-genetic and non-adaptive explanations, as well as 5) political and ethical issues.
Evolutionary psychologists respond by arguing that many of these criticisms are straw men, are based on an incorrect nature vs. nurture dichotomy, or are based on misunderstandings of the discipline.
Read more about Criticism Of Evolutionary Psychology: History of The Debate, Massive Modularity, Fear and Phobias As Innate or Learnt, Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness, Testability, Ethnocentrism, Reductionism and Determinism, Behaviors That Reduce Reproductive Success, Political and Ethical Issues
Famous quotes containing the words criticism of, criticism, evolutionary and/or psychology:
“However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance. He becomes a source of blessings rather than wages. Criticism is sacrilege, doubt is heresy.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.”
—Stanley Weiser, U.S. screenwriter, and Oliver Stone. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas)
“Fundamentally the male artist approximates more to the psychology of woman, who, biologically speaking, is a purely creative being and whose personality has been as mysterious and unfathomable to the man as the artist has been to the average person.”
—Beatrice Hinkle (1874–1953)