The Problems with Evolutionary Psychology

The evolutionary psychology FAQ at UCSB: (Warning: it’s a sad, ugly, long document, but worth perusing if you want ammunition against evolutionary psychology.) Chapter 7 of Darwin’s Descent of Man: (Warning: it’ll be a shock if you haven’t read 19th century literature in scientific racism before. Darwin held all the biases of his time.) The critical points: Evolution is more than just selection, and includes mutation, recombination, and drift. Natural selection has a cost; it puts an upper bound on the number of elements subject to selection. Populations have a substantial amount of genetic variation. Most of that variation is neutral, or nearly neutral. Mutations that have a small effect are invisible to selection. ----- Pharyngula: Email: pzmyers@ Twitter: Mastodon: @pzmyer