[lbo-talk] Sociobiology

[Miles Jackson]

andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> I agree that sociobiological hypothesis should be
> subject to peer review by anyone in any discipline
> that gives her/him the competence to discuss the
> ideas.  Including philosophy: Phil Kitcher's Vaulting
> Ambition, a good demolition of a lot of bad
> ideological sociobiological one more or less pure
> scientific grounds, is an excellent.  I think Kitcher
> goes too far in raising doubts about sociobiology per
> se, but his critiques are exemplary and almost always
> dead on. 
>
>   
Another thoughtful critique: David Buller's Adapting Minds.  He also 
explains why the field that calls itself "Evolutionary Psychology" is 
far from the only way to apply the concepts of evolution to an 
understanding of human behavior and social patterns.  For instance, 
Evolutionary Psychologists insist that the evolved characteristics that 
human beings now possess emerged during the "EEA" (environment of 
evolutionary adaptedness).  Believe it or not, evolutionary 
psychologists contend that the human EEA was a relative short period of 
time during the Pleistocene!  I think it's obvious, and I suspect that 
andie would agree, that humans possess many characteristics that emerged 
via natural selection far earlier than that (e.g., operant and classical 
conditioning) and also very recently (e.g., lactose tolerance in 
adults).  It might seem obvious that evolution is an ongoing process, 
but Evolutionary Psychologists disagree.  (This underlines my favorite 
criticism of sociobiologists/evolutionary psychologists: the biggest 
flaw is not that they try to apply the concepts of evolution to human 
behavior and social patterns; it is that time and time again they 
violate or misconstrue the basic principles of evolutionary theory!)

Miles