Reply #107: The Wiki article you quote is tagged as "unbalanced". Here is the response in the main article: [View All]

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology#Reception

Initial response

Although the application of adaptationist approaches to studying animal behavior has become standard and uncontroversial, evolutionary psychology has been entangled in the larger philosophical and social science controversies related to the nature versus nurture debate. Some of controversy has been related not to the science itself, but to concerns about its potential political misuse by others. For example, eugenics and social darwinism were political philosophies of the early 20th Century that were largely based on the naturalistic fallacy -- the erroneous idea that what is necessarily implies what ought. Other critics have expressed concerned about EP itself. As an adaptationist, nature-nurture interactionist perspective, it challenged the basic tenets of the predominant paradigm of the social sciences, cultural determinism. This view suggested that biology could be pretty much safely ignored when studying human behavior. The result has been sometimes heated discussions between supporters of these two different theoretical paradigms. <113>

Reductionism and determinism

Some critics view evolutionary psychology as a form of genetic reductionism and genetic determinism,<114> a common critique being that evolutionary psychology does not address the complexity of individual development and experience and fails to explain the influence of genes on behavior in individual cases.<115> Evolutionary psychologists respond that EP works within a nature-nurture interactionist framework that acknowledges that many psychological adaptations are facultative (sensitive to environmental variations during individual development). EP is generally not focused on proximate analyses of behavior but rather its focus is on the study of distal/ultimate causality (the evolution of psychological adaptations). The field of behavioral genetics is focused on the study of the proximate influence of genes on behavior. <116>

Testability of hypotheses

A frequent critique of the discipline is that the hypotheses of evolutionary psychology are difficult or impossible to adequately test, thus questioning its status as an actual scientific discipline, for example because many current traits probably evolved to serve different functions than they do now.<3> While evolutionary psychology hypotheses are difficult to test, evolutionary psychologists assert that is not impossible.<117> Part of the critique of the scientific base of evolutionary psychology includes a critique of the concept of the Environments of Evolutionary Adaptation (EEA). Some critics have argued that we know so little about the environment in which homo sapiens evolved that explaining specific traits as an adaption to that environment becomes highly speculative.<118> Evolutionary psychologists respond that we do know many things about this environment, including the facts that only women got pregnant, our ancestors were hunter-gatherers that generally lived in small tribes, etc.<119>

Modularity of mind

There is also disagreement among evolutionary psychologists concerning the ability and necessity of the computational and specifically the modular theory of mind to explain the evolutionary adaptation of psychological traits. Proponents of other models of the mind argue that the computational theory of mind is no better than non-evolutionary theories in explaining biological reality. Evolutionary psychologists also disagree about conceptualizing the level of modularity of the mind either as a few generalist modules or as many highly specific modules.<120><121> In response there are several criticisms of the non-modular theory with one example being that it has never produced any predictions or empirical confirmations while evolutionary theories based on modularity have produced many predictions that have been empirically confirmed.<116>

Evolutionary psychology defence

Overall, evolutionary psychologists argue that many of the criticisms leveled against the field are straw men, are based on a incorrect nature vs. nurture dichotomy, or are based on a misunderstandings of the discipline.

I tend to be very interested in the root causes of human behaviour. This is because I see so much of our behaviour as being extremely intractable, even across millennia and a vast range of cultures. So I tend to pay attention to disciplines that examine those sorts of questions - not the questions of why we are all so different, but why we are all so much the same. Concentrating on similarities between people seems somehow more charitable than focusing on differences and shortcomings. EP is one of the tools I use in that search, and I think that when kept within the boundaries the discipline sets for itself, EP is quite respectable.