Evolutionary Psychology
Michael Gilding Swinburne
University of Technology
Since the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), there have been on-going attempts to apply the theory of evolution by natural selection to human behaviour and society, invariably cast in terms of ‘science’. Three waves have been especially important. The first, framed in terms of ‘eugenics’, originated in the 1880s, reached its high water mark between the 1910s and 1930s, and collapsed in the wake of Nazi Germany’s ‘Final Solution’. The second, framed in terms of ‘sociobiology’, originated in the 1970s, aroused immense controversy within the academy during the 1980s, and thereafter dissipated. The final wave, framed in terms of ‘evolutionary psychology’, closely followed sociobiology. It coalesced as a program in the 1980s, aroused significant controversy during the 1990s, and continues to gather momentum.
Evolutionary psychologists acknowledge an intellectual debt to sociobiology, but distinguish their undertaking on several fronts. In the words of its founders John Tooby and Leda Cosmides: ‘Sociobiology had focused mostly on selectionist theories, with no consideration of the computational level and little interest in mapping psychological mechanisms’ (2005: 16n). The selectionist theories of sociobiology, they argue, are grounded in a ‘fitness teleology’ which assumes unbounded rationality on the part of humans, directed towards reproduction. In turn, sociobiological predictions fail to match observed human behaviour. For example: ‘men will pay to have nonreproductive sex with prostitutes they believe and hope are contracepting, yet they have to be paid to contribute to sperm banks’ (2005: 13). Similarly, those who can most afford children in wealthy nations choose to have fewer children.
In fact, evolutionary psychologists argue, an ‘informational or computational level’ mediates between selection and behaviour. To be adaptive, behaviours must respond to information. Neural circuits in the brain operate as information-processing ‘programs’, underpinning behaviour. Mutations may alter this neural circuitry, thereby creating alternative information–behaviour relationships. In turn, natural selection retains or discards alternative circuit designs from the species’ neural architecture on the basis of their impact upon the propagation of the species. Tooby and Cosmides emphasize: ‘The idea that the evolutionary causation of behaviour would lead to rigid, inflexible behaviour is the opposite of the truth: Evolved neural architectures are specifications of richly contingent systems for generating responses to informational inputs’ (2005: 13).
On this basis, evolutionary psychologists argue that the human mind comes ‘factory-equipped with an astonishing array of dedicated psychological mechanisms, designed over deep time by natural and sexual selection, to solve the hundreds of statistically recurring adaptive problems that our ancestors confronted’ (Buss, 2005: xxiv). These mechanisms make many of our inferences and decisions effortless and reflexive; hence they can be understood as ‘instincts’. The problems they are designed to solve include finding a mate, protecting children, hunting and gathering, and avoiding predators. In this context, Tooby and Cosmides describe their approach to the study of the mind as one of ‘reverse engineering’:
You start by carefully specifying an adaptive information processing problem; then you do a task analysis of that problem. A task analysis consists of identifying what properties a program would have to have to solve that problem well. This approach allows you to generate hypotheses about the structure of the programs that comprise the mind, which can then be tested. (2005: 16)
Unlike sociobiology, evolutionary psychology enlists support from the social and behavioural sciences, as well as the biological sciences. Above all, it garners support from psychology and anthropology, especially in the US (Buss, 2005: xix–xxii). It does not get support from sociology. Evolutionary psychologists expect that their paradigm will eventually subsume the ‘soft’ human social sciences, such as sociology. Tooby and Cosmides declare: ‘If evolutionary psychology turns out to be well-founded, then the existing superstructure of the social and behavioral sciences – the Standard Social Science Model – will have to be dismantled’ and replaced by ‘a new social sciences framework’ (2005: 6–7).
In close connection, evolutionary psychologists have institutionalized their paradigm through authoritative tomes, such as The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (Buss, 2005); journals, such as Evolution and Human Behavior and Human Nature; academic societies, such as the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES); and graduate programs (see the list for US universities on www.hbes.com). Evolutionary psychologists have also actively promoted their cause to a popular audience. Best-sellers include Matt Ridley’s The Red Queen (1993), Jared Diamond’s The Third Chimpanzee (1993), Robin Baker’s Sperm Wars (1996), and Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate (2002).
Sociologists are profoundly sceptical of core claims in the evolutionary psychology framework. Above all, they reject biologistic explanations of human behaviour, given human capacity for learning and cultural variation across time and place. In this context, they emphasize – in the words of Stevi Jackson and Amanda Rees – ‘the fluidity and contingency of self and identity, the diversity of social practices and relationships, and the uncertainty and unpredictability characteristic of life’ in contemporary societies (2007: 917). Sociologists also draw attention to the social construction of science, and its limited capacity to provide a fully objective account of human behaviour. Yet sociologists have been slow to respond to evolutionary psychology. Jackson and Rees observe that this is notwithstanding the fact that evolutionary psychology enjoys much more influence than sociology in media representations of social life and the popular imagination. On this account, they urge sociologists to engage with evolutionary psychology, and to contest the ‘impoverished representations of social life’ playing out in the public domain (2007: 917). This article does just so.
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