Sense on Evolutionary Psychology
Sense on Evolutionary Psychology
Controversy around Rebecca Watson’s recent talk on pop-psychology and media presentation of evolutionary psychology is probably having a least one positive side effect (see Sceptical arrogance and evolutionary psychology and Sceptical humility and peer review in science). There’s now more discussion on the Internet about evolutionary psychology and much of that discussion is sensible.
I often find lately I am linking to Jerry Coyne’s website Why Evolution is True. I won’t apologise for that - he does have interesting articles - and I often find myself agreeing with his take on current issues. That’s certainly true with this new article - Is evolutionary psychology worthless? And it’s timely, because Jerry Coyne has sometimes been used as a witness for the prosecution in the current debate. So it’s good to be reminded that, as is often the case, his positions are far more nuanced.
Jerry’s article is not specifically targeting Rebecca’s talk (he had not watched the video when he wrote it), but it is relevant, as a number of the commenters showed.