In an imporant sense, there is no such thing as 'evolutionary psychology' because there is no such thing as non-evolutionary psychology (after all, scientific psychologists cannot be 'creationists'). Evolutionary psychology is likely to be a temporary discipline, which will exist only as long as it is needed. As psychologists of all stripes come to make explicit their currently implicit hypotheses about human nature, past selection pressures and environments of evolutionary adaptiveness, evolutionary psychology will wither away as a distinct field and all psychology will be 'evolutionary' - for precisely the same reason that all biology is evolutionary. Psychology is, after all, a branch of biology.While I don't go so far as to predict the future, the theory here seems right to me. I usually feel a little silly when I say I'm going to study evolutionary psychology for exactly that reason - all psychology should be evolutionary. I want to study human behavior, and I expect that study to be informed by and compatible with evolutionary theory, as all study of human behavior should be.
Salmon C & Symons D (2001). Warrior lovers: erotic fiction, evolution and female sexuality. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
In a somewhat related note, I'll continue using this "grad school?" tag despite "grad school." or grad school" being more appropriate now.
1 comment:
Psychology is, after all, a branch of biology
Which explains why people think like fish: If it's in front of you, eat it.
Human psychology hasn't 'evolved.' That's what makes reading old books useful, the 'people parts' are still valid.
People aren't superior to animals, they are animals; and their psychology isn't all that different.
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