Evolutionary psychology gets a grilling by Newsweek. This strikes me as a bit slanted, and overly willing to dance on the grave of ev psych, but it’s still well worth reading. I’d say it’s required reading for anyone who’s read a persuasive book or article supporting ev psych, just for the sake of balance. As for me, I was always a bit perplexed by the notion of “mind modules” put forth by the ev-psych gurus, but I still think it’s fairly obvious (as the article doesn’t dispute) that evolution has shaped our brains in profound and powerful ways that we’re poften only dimly aware of. The trick, of course, is not using that as an excuse for labeling (or even justifying) every widespread tendency in a society as “natural,” inborne behavior.
Tags: evolution, evolutionary psychology, Newsweek, psychology
August 4, 2009 at 10:52 am
[...] Psychology Defended By brachinus Psychology Today takes a critical look at the Newsweek piece by Sharon Begley I linked to earlier. Not so much a rebuttal or a defense as a primer on the errors in the [...]