archeologia: Criticism of evolutionary psychology

Dismissing arguments based on the arguers supposed ideological commitments--without engaging the actual arguments--shows the Ad hominem fallacy.

Evolutionary psychology seeks to identify and understand human psychological traits that have evolved in much the same way as biological traits, through adaptation to environmental cues. Furthermore, it tends toward viewing the vast majority of psychological traits, certainly the most important ones, as the result of past adaptions, which has generated significant controversy and criticism from competing fields. These criticisms include disputes about the testability of evolutionary hypotheses, cognitive assumptions such as massive modularity, vagueness stemming from assumptions about the environment that leads to evolutionary adaptation, the importance of non-genetic and non-adaptive explanations, as well as political and ethical issues in the field itself. Evolutionary psychologists contend that a number of the criticisms against it are straw men, based on an incorrect nature versus nurture dichotomy, and/or based on misunderstandings of the discipline. In addition, some defenders of evolutionary psychology - such as American biologist and skeptic Jerry Coyne - assert that critics of the discipline base their criticisms on a priori political assumptions, such as those associated with "blank-slateism—which may stem partly from the Marxist faith in the infinite malleability of humans". Dismissing arguments based on the arguers supposed ideological commitments--without engaging…

Kategoria: archeologia

Rodzina: archeologia

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