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Well, I finally got around to finishing my January 2009 issue of Scientific American, you know, the special issue on the "most powerful idea in science" (shhh! Don't tell Einstein).  I think most of the evolution articles were well written.  I particularly enjoyed “Evolution in the Everyday World” which talks about how evolution is being applied in technology, criminology, medicine, and computer science.  Because I graduated with a doctoral degree in psychology, I was especially interested in “The Four Fallacies of Pop Evolution Psychology.”

Generally speaking, evolutionary psychology uses evolutionary principles to understand human development and behavior.  It is “the new kid on the block” in the discipline of psychology.  It has only been around (in classrooms and texts) for about 10 years.  I thought that the queen bee, evolution biology, would welcome this new offspring into the hive and put it “under her wing” until evolutionary psychology could successfully branch out on its own.  On the contrary, she views the new discipline as an unwanted species resulting from an unfortunate mutation in the social sciences.  And so now the queen bee is trying to artificially select it for elimination.  That’s right folks; evolutionary psychology has been voted off the hive by evolution biologists. 

Hoooray!  As several hundred of my former students know, I don’t think too highly of evolutionary psychology.  I have always said that it was intellectually bankrupted from the get go, and Scientific American (SCIAM) agrees, to a certain extent.  

I found it interesting that SCIAM calls it “pop evolution psychology,” as if to suggest that there may be a legitimate evolutionary psychology out there somewhere – yeah right!  SCIAM sould have just called it “evolutionary psychology” because the scholars it attacks are those the psychology discipline recognizes as modern architects of the evolutionary psychology movement, notables like Steve Pinker.  SCIAM’s criticisms are legitimate, but as we shall soon see, this is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

According to the article, evolutionary psychologists attempt to understand human behavior by “analyzing the adaptive problems our ancestors faced [long ago].”  However, the article also points out that claims regarding our ancestors’ adaptive problems “are purely speculative because we have little evidence of the conditions under which early human evolution occurred.”  In other words, evolutionary psychologists can’t say for certain what conditions and adaptive challenges existed long ago because they were not there!

The article also points out that for evolutionary psychologists to effectively speculate on how adaptation to environmental challenges influenced our ancestors’ psychological traits, we need “knowledge of our ancestors’ psychological traits – which we don’t have – [so] we can’t know how selection tinkered with them to create the minds we now possess.”  In other words, evolutionary psychologists cannot speak authoritatively on how our minds developed because we are missing too much information, thus they resort to best-guess story telling to fill in the gaps.

The gist of these and other criticisms is that evolutionary psychology is plagued by speculation.  It lacks facts to back up the ideas it’s advocating.  Jack Nicholaus might put it this way: “You evolutionary psychologists are writing checks (hypotheses) that your research (facts) can’t cash!”

Well done evolution biology, but did you notice that some of the criticisms you leveled at evolutionary psychology also apply to you?  That’s right – you better be careful when pointing a finger at someone else, there are three pointing back at you, you schmuck.

In the same edition, SCIAM also presents in stunning artistic detail the human pedigree showing the evolution of mankind.  The article boldly claims that “we KNOW that our closest living ancestor is the chimpanzee and that humans arose in Africa between five million and seven million years ago.”  Somewhat surprisingly, after making this bold claim, the article admits these 4 weaknesses: (a) “the human family tree contains many dead branches;” (b) “the story of our origins is far from complete;” (c) paleontologists have yet to find “fossils of the last common ancestor [linking] chimpanzees are humans,” and (d) we have yet to learn how “homo sapiens [were] able to outcompete the Neandertals and other archaic humans.”

Soooo, what evolution biology is saying is it lacks facts to back up several of its assertions regarding the human pedigree because its wasn't there when those things happened, and it is left with conjecture when filling many of the gaps of the human pedigree.  Wait a minute!  Yet evolution biology claims to KNOW that humanity arose in Africa 5-7 million years ago as a close relative of chimpanzees?!  

Evolutionary biology, when it comes to the origins of mankind, like the evolutionary psychologists, you too are writing checks (hypotheses) that your research (facts) can’t cash!

 


Comments

Jared* link
04/21/2009 22:14

The criticism about just-so stories was most famously made by Gould and Lewinton in their spandrals paper about 30 years ago. So you have a kernal of truth. But your application of the criticism here is a non-sequitur.

The so-called weaknesses have little or no bearing on determining our closest living relative, nor on the timing of the split. The first was determined by comparative anatomy, and has been further bolstered by comparative genetics. The second is from a combination of dating the fossil record, as well as the application of molecular clock techniques.

As to the "weaknesses," let's take them in turn.

(a) “the human family tree contains many dead branches;”

So what? This is not unique to humans.

(b) “the story of our origins is far from complete;”

Again, so what? We have a big picture, but a lot of details are not known. For example, there are debates over whether some fossils should be considered separate species or not, or exactly which species gave rise other species. None of this is a revelation.

(c) paleontologists have yet to find “fossils of the last common ancestor [linking] chimpanzees are humans,”

It may surprise you that until 2005 there were NO known fossils of chimpanzees! (And, to my knowledge, those that have been found consist only of teeth.) This is because chimpanzees live in places that have poor conditions for fossil preservation. It is not surprising then, that the most recent common ancestor has not been found either.

(d) we have yet to learn how “homo sapiens [were] able to outcompete the Neandertals and other archaic humans.”

Again, what does this have to do with anything? We know that Homo sapiens and Neandertals co-existed because we have fossils of each species in the same geographic area from the same time period. Obviously Neandertals went extinct and we didn't. That we don't know why is a gap in our knowledge, but that has no bearing on the soundness of the the big picture.

To top things off, the graphic of which you write (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-human-pedigree) indicates different levels of confidence about connections.

The critique of evolutionary psychology is not simply that nobody was there to observe the evolution, or that it contains speculation. It is that the methods available to other areas of evolutionary biology are not available to evolutionary psychology, which leaves it epistemologically weak.

All areas of science contain conclusions with varying strength of support. Further, all historical sciences--by necessity--operate without contemporaneous observations.

Reply
Dave C.
04/22/2009 10:44

Jared*

Your defense of the weaknesses regarding the pedigree of mankind somewhat miss the mark; the real purpose of the post is to simply point out that several of the weaknesses with evolution psychology also apply to the theory of common descent, although to differing degrees.

While the weaknesses may have no bearing on determining human pedigree, they certainly do factor into the truth claims and degree of certainty that can be made. The theory of human descent is rife with uncertainty and gaps! This fact alone would suggest that anyone claiming certainty where there is none is a liar. Gaps DO have a bearing on the soundness of the big picture.

Sure, evolution biology has the upper edge in the sense that it has physical evidence from long ago, while evolution psychology does not. What they have in common, though, is that each lacks "certain" evidence which allows certain truth claims. By "certain" I mean the sort of evidence that strongly corroborates more rigorous theories that we find elsewhere in science.

The science of human descent is largely stuck in the theory creation/building mode of science. I am waiting for it to emerge from this domain and enter the theory justification mode of science wherein falsifiable hypotheses are deduced and tested in a controlled setting. Until that day arrives, evolution biologists can take their certainty statements and shove it! They need to stop deceiving people.

Reply
Ryan
04/22/2009 18:36

Jared,
Allow me to respectfully take issue with some of your comments. It seems to me that you are displaying the very same unjustified confidence in evolution that this post took issue with. You say that the closest "relative" to humans was "determined by comparative anatomy," but the mere existence of similarities does not conclusively show that there is any relation. Homologous structures, and DNA patterns for that matter, are just as easily interpreted for the Design argument. If the same guy made everything, couldn't we expect similiarities? Maybe he liked designing things a certain way, after a certain pattern. The point here is that if similar structures is how relation is established, evolutionists need to be careful about considering that as conclusive. It's really a moot issue, since it doesn't lend any more favor to evolution than it does to Creation or Design.
As far as the idea that you "know" Neanderthals and humans co-existed (and were not simply both humans), the identity of the Neanderthals is not the issue I'm interesting in bringing up, but just how evolutionists claim to have such sure knowledge about these issues, or macroevolutionary assertions, or any and every assertion having to do with evolution that was supposed to have happened so long ago in which evolutionists say they "know." I would ask some very fundamental questions: How did you get that knowledge? Did you observe it yourself? Did another scientist observe it millions of years ago themselves and document it properly in a scientific journal? Did the Holy Ghost reveal it to you, or did an angel come and declare it to you? The answer, no doubt, is no, no, no, and no. So how did you acquire this knowledge of which you are so certain? It was by speculation based upon circumstancial evidence. Does that constitute knowing? Hardly. That is believing. What you should say in the future is, "We, as evolutionists, believe..." Rather than "We know," because you don't know. Even with radiometric dating, how do you know it works right? Did you travel back in time to go verify it? And what of the dates found with such methods that don't fit the evolution timeline, which are simply ignored (but that's another issue altogether)? My point with this is that there is an unjustifiable attitude of certainty among evolutionists that is misleading to the general public.
You are exactly right that historical research cannot engage in contemporary observation, but evolution finds itself in a much, much more difficult spot than regular historical research, which may tap into written records (interestingly, the scriptures claim that a written record has been kept since the beginning, contrary to secular claims). But with evoultion there can be no such helpful thing. No ape creature hominid wrote the story of evolution as it was happenning. All that is available is speculation based on what are largely ambiguous artifacts and improvable dating methods. If evolutionists want to believe that their conclusions about that stuff are right, fine, but it is a great disservice to mankind to proclaim that they "know" when they clearly do not. I think that is really the essence of what this post was about - recognizing such limitations.

Reply
Jared* link
04/22/2009 19:02

My main point was that your conclusion that evolutionary biologists are overreaching to claim that "humanity arose in Africa 5-7 million years ago as a close relative of chimpanzees" was not supported by the weaknesses you cited.

I have a lot of problems with what you are saying, but I can't think of how to proceed without sounding rude, and you probably don't really care anyway. So here's a virtual handshake, and I wish you a good day.

Reply
Jared* link
04/22/2009 21:26

Ack. Ryan,

Somehow your comment made it in before mine without me seeing it, and now it's time for bed. Good points, but I can't respond now, nor can I make any promises for the future. But if you have free time, read Ken Miller's book, "Only a Theory," or Daniel Fairbanks's "Relics of Eden."

Reply
Dave C.
04/23/2009 13:16

Ryan's reply addresses an issue that is well known in the philosophy of science - the truthfulness of a theory is often underdetermined by the data (it's sometimes called the Duhem-Quine thesis). In plain terms, whether we accept or reject a theory is not determined solely by the facts/data. An extension of this is that common sense people can interpret data differently.
In cases where the data do not definitively point to a specific theory, we need to exercise caution and avoid suppressing alternative viewpoints/theories. Suppression of legitimate, alternative viewpoints is anti-intellectualism and theoretical dogmatism.

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