One of the most misunderstood subjects in science is the evolution of the human mind and cognitive abilities thereof. These misunderstandings (and not only misunderstandings) have given rise to more than one pseudoscience. Most of them have already died out, yet the evolutionary psychology persists.

In what may be the worst attempt at a defense of evopsych yet Michael Price accidentally¹ points out most of what is wrong with evopsych (which otherwise could be an interesting science). I will therefore comment (refute would be a bad word, since it is quite transparent) not just on this article but on evopsych in general.

The human brain, just like every aspect of every organism on the planet, is the product of evolution. If you accept that evolution is true, you can’t avoid that conclusion. That’s why I often get confused when I hear reasonable people being broadly dismissive of evolutionary psychology (EP).

First of all, psychology, evolutionary or not, does not in general study the human brain, but the human mind and human behavioral patterns. While it is clear that these are in the brain (where else?), it does not mean that they are products of biological evolution alone.

Human hand and writing would be a good analogy here: while it is clear that the human hand is a product of biological evolution, the skill of writing is not. We must learn it. Neither did the hand evolve to enable writing in particular, it is however possible and likely that it did evolve to enable precision gripping, and writing is one application of this particular adaptation (and several others obviously). It is also unlikely that the human cognitive ability to learn to write is an evolutionary adaptation (in that case this ability must have had been inactive for tens of thousands of years so how and why did it evolve in the first place), most likely it is an application of more general cognitive abilities which did evolve.

This is a neat analogy, but it should not be taken too far. We know way too little about what mind really is, how processes that are going in the brain are related to what is conscious and unconscious mind and so on. Developing neurosciences can and probably will cast some light on this in the future² but for now mostly we don’t know. It is however important to understand how complicated (and much more than that) are relations between evolutionary adaptations and their applications. Human hand is obviously able to hold a pen but nobody would say that it evolved to be able to hold a pen³. Yet, it’s not so easy to know which abilities and processes in our mind are adaptations (or non-adaptive, but still genetic features) and which are applications thereof.

Thus, we aren’t sure. The brain has certainly evolved (though is everything there an adaptation? probably not) and so has the mind in general. But it doesn’t follow that every noticeable behavior is also a product of evolution, much less an adaptation. Evolutionary psychology could become a valuable addition to the cognitive sciences if its practitioners recognized these complexities, not just in declaration, and perhaps if they bothered to learn how actual scientific research is expected to work.

It is also important to stress that by merely using the word evolution or a cognate thereof you don’t make your writing any more scientific. In fact evopsych practitioners are in this regard more similar to quacks delighting in sciencey words like quantum that to actual scientists.

may dislike an EP approach that expects the brain to be composed of an implausibly-large-seeming number of mental modules, or that is based on overly-speculative-seeming assumptions about what the environments of our evolutionary ancestors were like. The problem is, although these critiques are often triggered by a specific perceived implication of EP that is regarded with incredulity or disapproval, critics don’t always restrict themselves to challenging only this specific implication. Instead they regard their objection as a reason to attack the entire field of EP.

Most of the time the real problem is that evopsych practitioners are all too enthusiastic in pushing their claims and speculations and treating them like they were nearly as confirmed as the theory of evolution itself, and this often without a shred of evidence in support.

There might be reasonable people who believe that a particular aspect of human mind is an evolutionary adaptation and they are willing to work hard to look for evidence for (or against) their theories, doing legitimate research, but they are lost deep in the noise. I’m afraid that although some legitimate research might be there, the entire field of EP can’t be separated from how the evopsych is actually practiced, and this means reasonable people will keep away from it, and be dismissive of it.

Don’t want it? Fine, just don’t talk as if these beloved mental modules existed until you have solid evidence that they do (there’s none); don’t treat your (sometimes neat, often quite cheap) speculations as anything more than they are. There is nothing wrong with speculations, what is wrong is behaving like they were anything more. Learn how research is expected to actually be performed and do so. Yes, that means more work, that more often will have to end with that awful I don’t know conclusion. Tough luck.

Any critique that broadly dismisses the whole EP enterprise—that is, the whole notion that we can use evolutionary theory to understand the brain—is taking a position that is, intellectually and scientifically, very difficult to defend.

No. As I have written above, the whole EP enterprise is inseparable from how it is actually practiced. Rejecting evopsych does not imply rejecting the evolution in the least, and does not even imply rejecting solid research on evolutionary aspects of the functions of the human mind, although it means that solid researchers would do better to look for other label, as evolutionary psychology has gained, let’s put it mildly, a little notoriety to it. Tough luck again.

Anatomists understand, for example, that the heart functions to pump blood and the intestines function to extract nutrients from food. And when it comes to accounting for function scientifically, there is only one game in town: natural selection. No other known process can build a functional organismal trait (that is, an adaptation). So regardless of whether you accept evolution, you can’t do anatomy without studying organs that are evolutionary adaptations, and you can’t understand these organs without at least implicitly invoking evolutionary principles like functional specialisation for survival and reproduction. Since human neural tissue has been sculpted by the same evolutionary processes as all other tissue, these same principles apply to the study of psychology.

Now this is a real gem. Not just because it implies that rejecting evopsych means rejecting evolution, and not even because it appears again not to notice that the mind is not the brain and that psychology does not study the neural tissue. It is because, for psychology, there is another game in town: culture. Price is obviously aware that culture exists, and that psychology has something to do about it, if only it is to try to understand evolved adaptations—and their mental, behavioral, and cultural products and by-products, but seems completely unaware that the distance (and I use the term very loosely) between an actual evolved adaptation and a cultural product thereof may be pretty much as big as the one between evolving the opposable thumb and holding a fountain pen.

It is obvious that without the evolution humans would not be able to write⁴, but do evolutionary principles, and understanding of the adaptations of human hand enhance our ability to understand poetry? I really doubt.

Unless I missed the point and the article is a work of parody, that is.
Neuroscience is a true and valuable science, although some practitioners and even more media people are way too enthusiastic over it. These problems are described in the excellent book Brainwashed by Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld.
Unless, of course, human hand has been created to hold a banana, or maybe the other way around.
There would be no humans, for one.