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May 31, 2005

the emperor's new paradigm:

And to follow up on recent posts (here, and here) on evolutionary psychology there is a new review in the latest edition of Trends in Cognitive Sciences:

Evolutionary psychology: the emperor's new paradigm David J. Buller Trends in Cognitive Sciences Volume 9, Issue 6 , June 2005, Pages 277-283 Abstract For some evolutionary psychology is merely a field of inquiry, but for others it is a robust paradigm involving specific theories about the nature and evolution of the human mind. Proponents of this paradigm claim to have made several important discoveries regarding the evolved architecture of the mind. Highly publicized discoveries include a cheater-detection module, a psychological sex difference in jealousy, and motivational mechanisms underlying parental love and its lapses, which purportedly result in child maltreatment. In this article, I argue that the empirical evidence for these ‘discoveries’ is inconclusive, at best. I suggest that, as the reigning paradigm in evolutionary psychology has produced questionable results, the evolutionary study of human psychology is still in need of a guiding paradigm.

—tom.

Posted at May 31, 2005 09:39 PM

Comments

tom says:

And also on EP see this post from Mixing Memory http://mixingmemory.blogspot.com/2005/05/has-evolutionary-psychology-been_30.html

Comment posted at May 31, 2005 10:23 PM

illusve mind says:

I give an account of the impact of some of the claims of evolutionary psychology on ethics in Evolution, Altruism and Ethics

http://illusivemind.blogspot.com/2005/05/evolution-altruism-and-ethics.html

Comment posted at June 2, 2005 09:09 AM

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