Responding to something I wrote at the Post-Darwinist about the popularity of evolutionary psychology among atheists, Moran (a textbook co-author you may well have suffered through in school), responds:
Just for the record, Denyse, I’m one of those evil atheists that you like to rant about but I’m totally opposed to evolutionary psychology.
But you already knew that many evolutionary biologist were against evolutionary psychology, didn’t you?
No, I didn’t, Larry, and if that’s true, it’s high time more of them voiced their objections. The only sustained critiques I have seen are Hilary and Steven Rose’s unjustly neglected Alas, Poor Darwin and David Buller’s also unjustly neglected Adapting Minds. Steven Rose is a neurobiologist, but Hilary Rose is a social scientist, and David J. Buller a philosopher.ÂÂ
No doubt, there are many critiques out there that I haven’t seen, but I wonder what proportion comes from evolutionary biologists, as opposed to social scientists who know the difference between research and speculation.
Evolutionary psychology obviously lacks any systematic body of knowledge to match its grandiose ideas, so one might expect the evolutionary biologists to shout it down pretty loudly.
But then, come to think of it, isn’t there something to be said for evolutionary biologists fronting the nonsense? After all, the evolutionary psychologists keep the bar for demonstrable evidence nice and low for everybody.
Are you an evolutionary biologist who does not believe in evolutionary psychology? Write in and tell us, will you? If, for whatever reason, you’ve been banned at Uncommon Descent, go to the Post-Darwinist and put a comment in any story.
Recently at the Mindful Hack, O’Leary’s blog on neuroscience issues,
The Spiritual Brain provides lots for some people to like and others to be hopping mad about.
Canadians tiring of atheist tirades?
Frank Tipler tries to prove Christianity through physics
Recently at the ID arts site:
A mammoth sculpture, a major new find in early human art (35 000 ya) suggests that sophistication in art appears suddenly.