>>>Miles: 2. The naive assumption that there was one period
>>
>>of time (the EEA) in
>>
>>>which human psychological traits "evolved".
>
>
> Who thinks this? They are still evolving. Of course
> homo sapiens has only been around for 1000,00 years or
> so. an evolutionary blink, you might consider that
> "one period."
>
> Luke: However, _it does_ stand
>
>>to reason that our days
>>as hunter-gatherers played a particularly huge role
>>in our evolution, since
>>the vast majority of humans were hunter-gatherers.)
>
>
> And for most of the period of time in which homo
> sapiens and our ancestors have existed.
>
Justin's not up on the "EEA" goofiness. Evolutionary psychologists claim that the "environment of evolutionary adaptedness" is a relatively short period of time in human prehistory, and like Luke, assert that this period played a "particularly huge role in our evolution". Again, I want to emphasize that this is a gross misapplication of evolutionary theory. To claim that only a single time segment of a species' history on the planet is responsible for the adaptations found in the species is a bizarre claim. Based on patterns of behavior in other mammalian (and even reptilian!) species, it's safe to say that many of the adaptations that have helped shape human behavior and psychology predate the existence of primates. --One example: our susceptibility to operant and classical conditioning, which is found in species as primitive as flatworms. Practically speaking, the "EEA" for humans spans from the emergence of life on the planet to the present day. (Evolution is an ongoing process!)
In contrast to most sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists, I'm arguing that the characteristics we see in humans are the product of hundreds of millions (not hundreds of thousands!) years of natural selection, accidents, catastrophic events, and genetic drift. Any casual reading of Darwin or more recent serious evolutionary theory will verify that the problem with evolutionary psychology or sociobiology is not that it applies the concept of evolution to human psychology; it is that notions in evolutionary psychology like the "EEA" betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the way evolution works.
Miles