Part of the controversy has consisted in each side accusing the other of holding or supporting extreme political viewpoints. Critics view evolutionary psychology as a form of genetic reductionism and determinism,<1> 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.<2>
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.<4> Part of the critique of the scientific base of evolutionary psychology includes a critique of the concept of the Ancestral Adaptive Environment. Some critics have argued that EP assumes that human evolution occurred in a uniform environment, and suggest that we know so little about the environment, or probably multiple environments, in which homo sapiens evolved that explaining specific traits as an adaption to that environment becomes highly speculative.<5>
Another frequent critique against the narrowly defined discipline of evolutionary psychlogy comes even from other psychologists who work within evolutionary frameworks. This is a critique of the computational and specifically the modular theory of mind, which according to several groups of critics is not well supported, or necessary in order to explain psychological traits as having adapted. Proponents of other models of the mind argue that the computational theory of mind does not fit with our biological reality any more than does a mind shaped entirely by the environment. Even within evolutionary psychology there is discussion about whether to conceptualize the level of modularity of the mind, either as a few generalist modules or as many highly specific modules.<6><7>
Also the basic theoretical assumptions of the discipline are challenged by its critics. Some theoreticians argue that evolutionary psychology leans on misconceptions of biological and evolutionary theory which affects its claims to scientific validity.<8>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_evolutionary_psychologyHowever, this way of thinking is also widely condemned as “psychobiological extremism”, because once you start attributing common behaviors to brain biology without having indisputable evidence to support your claims, it is not long before you start to blame every type of human behavior on some as-yet-undiscovered “mental organ of convenience”.
Some extremists have even gone so far as to suggest that there is a mental organ responsible for religious belief, the so-called ‘god module’, the instructions for which are genetically encoded in our ‘god gene’. Such ideas are easily discreditable because they try to oversimplify social phenomena that are so complex that they seem to be almost impossible for the average person to comprehend.
These kinds of unsubstantiable speculations have become so pervasive, because of their sensationalist potential, that even otherwise reputable scientific publications cannot help themselves but to cash in on the controversy by printing articles about every nutcase behavioral gene theory that crawls out of the academic trashcan.
Not only is there no evidence for almost any of these claims, the circumstantial evidence weighs heavily against them. For example, the development of functionally specific mental organs would be an evolutionary dead-end. The evolution of animal faces might have slowed down to a halt if corresponding changes were also needed in a specialized face recognition brain module.
http://www.evolutionary-philosophy.net/psychology.htmlThe argument over the evolutionary "appropriateness" of rape Begley outlines is important because many self-proclaimed EP realists argue that human nature leads us to wage war on our neighbors, deceive our spouses, and abuse our stepchildren. Rape, they say, is just a reproductive strategy, marriage a no-win struggle of mutually-assured disappointment, and romantic love a chemical reaction luring us into reproductive traps parental love keeps us from escaping. Theirs is an all-encompassing narrative that claims to explain it all.
But evolutionary psychology’s narrative contains many glaring contradictions. Women, for example, are said to be the choosy, reserved sex. Men spend their energies trying to impress women – flaunting expensive watches, driving shiny new sports-cars, clawing their way to positions of fame and status – all in order to convince the coy females to part with their closely-guarded sexual favors. For women, we’re told, sex is all about the security of the relationship, not the physical pleasure. (See Natalie Angier's spirited spanking of EP for gender generalizing here.)
And yet, despite repeated assurances that women aren’t particularly sexual creatures, in cultures around the world, men go to extraordinary lengths to control female libido: female genital mutilation, head-to-toe chadors, medieval witch burnings, chastity belts, muttered insults about “insatiable” whores, pathologizing, paternalistic medical diagnoses, the debilitating scorn heaped on any female who chooses to be generous with her sexuality… all obvious elements of a brutal campaign to keep the supposedly low-key female libido under wraps. Why the electrified razor-wire high-security fence around a kitty-cat?
While EP offers a valuable way of thinking about psychological development and life in the preshistoric environments, many of the most prominent voices in the field are less scientists than political philosophers. They choose some aspect of modern life and construct elaborate justifications located in an inaccessible ancient environment. Often, the fact that their story seems to make sense is the only evidence they offer. For them, it may be enough, but it isn't enough if you're aspiring to be taken seriously as a science.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-dawn/200906/evolutionary-psychology-deserves-criticism