Cave Thinkers
Cave Thinkers
How evolutionary psychology gets evolution wrong.
By Amanda Schaffer
I don’t think people get evolution, or biology at all. This article points to flaws in some jack-hole New York Times columnists articlethat claims that Evolutionary Psychology (EP) is the driving force behind human behavior. That men must be more competitive than women because they, the men, win more Scrabble competitions? WTF? My main
concern with this is that other people will read the New York Times
article and accept it. The fact that more men win Scrabble championships than women has nothing to do with competition. I do find the fact odd though. I understand that women are usually more adept at language based skills than men. Perhaps Scrabble is more memory based than language based, but I digress.
I, for one, am of the belief that our biology is the primary driving force behind what we do. I tend to look to a biological reason for societal and individual behavior. That doesn’t mean that I am totally nature vs. nurture though. I also believe that the human mind is an incredibly flexible and adaptable machine. That what we are taught has enormous ramifications in regards to our future behavior.
