[lbo-talk] evo psych: balderdash

Dwayne Monroe idoru345 at yahoo.com
Tue May 3 14:29:50 PDT 2005


One of the remarkable things about this list is that it attracts a vast gallery of eyeballs -- many more *lurkers* than regular participants.

So I'm sure someone out there -- perhaps an evo psych enthusiast so enraged by this attack on their field they knocked the neolithic man action figure from their desk -- is readying a learned reply.

Still...

I became convinced evo psych was not quite the nutritious meal its boosters claimed when, several years ago, I watched a PBS program on the topic.

A group of evo psych adepts sat around a table being interviewed by a PBS worthy.

It was a televised orgy of academic confidence. They were convinced, they were, that before too long, every aspect of human behavior would be explained using evo psych research techniques (which, to my non-specialist ears, sounded a lot like *once upon a time, pre-historic people did X, therefore, modern phenomena Y* repeated over and over again).

When it comes to evaluating theory, I'm old fashioned: if you claim to explain everything, I begin to suspect that perhaps, you're explaining nothing.

.d.



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