Evolutionary psychology: A "motley navy" of speculations, soon to be stranded?

Philosopher Jerry Fodor shares my skepticism of "evolutionary psychology", and explains why in "Why Pigs Don't Have Wings":

The years after Darwin witnessed a remarkable proliferation of other theories, each seeking to co-opt natural selection for purposes of its own. Evolutionary psychology is currently the salient instance, but examples have been legion. They’re to be found in more or less all of the behavioural sciences, to say nothing of epistemology, semantics, theology, the philosophy of history, ethics, sociology, political theory, eugenics and even aesthetics. What they have in common is that they attempt to explain why we are so-and-so by reference to what being so-and-so buys for us, or what it would have bought for our ancestors. ‘We like telling stories because telling stories exercises the imagination and an imagination would have been a good thing for a hunter-gatherer to have.’ ‘We don’t approve of eating grandmother because having her around to baby-sit was useful in the hunter-gatherer ecology.’ ‘We like music because singing together strengthened the bond between the hunters and the gatherers (and/or between the hunter-gatherer grownups and their hunter-gatherer offspring)’. ‘We talk by making noises and not by waving our hands; that’s because hunter-gatherers lived in the savannah and would have had trouble seeing one another in the tall grass.’ ‘We like to gossip because knowing who has been up to what is important when fitness depends on co-operation in small communities.’ ‘We don’t all talk the same language because that would make us more likely to interbreed with foreigners (which would be bad because it would weaken the ties of hunter-gatherer communities).’ ‘We don’t copulate with our siblings because that would decrease the likelihood of interbreeding with foreigners (which would be bad because, all else being equal, heterogeneity is good for the gene pool).’ I’m not making this up, by the way. Versions of each of these theories can actually be found in the adaptationist literature. But, in point of logic, this sort of explanation has to stop somewhere. Not all of our traits can be explained instrumentally; there must be some that we have simply because that’s the sort of creature we are. And perhaps it’s unnecessary to remark that such explanations are inherently post hoc (Gould called them ‘just so stories’); or that, except for the prestige they borrow from the theory of natural selection, there isn’t much reason to believe that any of them is true.

The high tide of adaptationism floated a motley navy, but it may now be on the ebb. If it does turn out that natural selection isn’t what drives evolution, a lot of loose speculations will be stranded high, dry and looking a little foolish. Induction over the history of science suggests that the best theories we have today will prove more or less untrue at the latest by tomorrow afternoon. In science, as elsewhere, ‘hedge your bets’ is generally good advice.

I have no problem (and am sure Fodor does not) with assuming that many features of our psychology are a result of our evolution. For example, the disproportionate tendency of humans to be right-handed rather than left-handed probably explains why so many languages associate the right side with things that are right or dexterous and the left side with things that are sinister or gauche or - if you like - left behind.

The problem with the "just-so" stories of evolutionary psychology is that - as Fodor implies in his entertaining passage - the evolutionary psychologist seizes on a given trait noticed in contemporary society and makes up a story about how that trait may have been useful in the Stone Age. That's "adaptationism." But the reality is that, in most cases, we have no idea whether the trait even prevailed in the Stone Age, let alone whether conditions then actually favoured it. There is nothing unusual about people preferring to do things that do not particularly benefit them or their children, for a variety of reasons.

The underlying assumption of evolutionary psychology is that people do not simply make decisions about what feels right, but are programmed to behave in certain ways by their genes. Believe that at your peril.

Apparently, there will be a big meeting at Altenberg, Austria, this July, to discuss what is wrong with adaptationism in general. Maybe we will be seeing fewer stories about, for example, the Big Bazooms theory of evolution, but don't count on it.

Oh, and why pigs don't have wings? Because, you see, winged she-pigs outran the he-pigs that were pursuing them, so the he-pigs only caught up with the ones that didn't have wings, so the "wingless" trait was passed on to all the little piglets. And our Stone Age ancestors witnessed the last of the transition, when there were still a few flying pigs around but not many, hence the expressing "when pigs fly." And if you think that's ridiculous, see the Big Bazooms theory, and don't miss Fred Reed's hilarious take on it ("Darwin and Banana Boobs").

So THAT'S why we don't eat Grandma? ... oh, come on!

Rutgers philosopher Jerry Fodor, who has little use for evolutionary psychology (he calls it "Darwinism"*), holds forth again, this time in the London Review of Books, targeting silliness like why we don't eat our forebears (if we don't):

The years after Darwin witnessed a remarkable proliferation of other theories, each seeking to co-opt natural selection for purposes of its own. Evolutionary psychology is currently the salient instance, but examples have been legion. They’re to be found in more or less all of the behavioural sciences, to say nothing of epistemology, semantics, theology, the philosophy of history, ethics, sociology, political theory, eugenics and even aesthetics. What they have in common is that they attempt to explain why we are so-and-so by reference to what being so-and-so buys for us, or what it would have bought for our ancestors. ‘We like telling stories because telling stories exercises the imagination and an imagination would have been a good thing for a hunter-gatherer to have.’ ‘We don’t approve of eating grandmother because having her around to baby-sit was useful in the hunter-gatherer ecology.’ ‘We like music because singing together strengthened the bond between the hunters and the gatherers (and/or between the hunter-gatherer grownups and their hunter-gatherer offspring)’. ‘We talk by making noises and not by waving our hands; that’s because hunter-gatherers lived in the savannah and would have had trouble seeing one another in the tall grass.’ ‘We like to gossip because knowing who has been up to what is important when fitness depends on co-operation in small communities.’ ‘We don’t all talk the same language because that would make us more likely to interbreed with foreigners (which would be bad because it would weaken the ties of hunter-gatherer communities).’ ‘We don’t copulate with our siblings because that would decrease the likelihood of interbreeding with foreigners (which would be bad because, all else being equal, heterogeneity is good for the gene pool).’ I’m not making this up, by the way. Versions of each of these theories can actually be found in the adaptationist literature. But, in point of logic, this sort of explanation has to stop somewhere. Not all of our traits can be explained instrumentally; there must be some that we have simply because that’s the sort of creature we are. And perhaps it’s unnecessary to remark that such explanations are inherently post hoc (Gould called them ‘just so stories’); or that, except for the prestige they borrow from the theory of natural selection, there isn’t much reason to believe that any of them is true.

Fodor goes on to explain why he thinks that the theory of natural selection (survival of the fittest) might be in danger.

The theory of natural selection may well be in danger. I can think of a number of reasons for doubting that natural selection/survival of the fittest explains the progress from mud to mind of the last five billion years. But, quite honestly, I hardly think we need go to that kind of trouble to explain what is wrong with the sort of evolutionary psychology Fodor is dissing here. The main problem is that there is no way whatever to know if it is wrong.

You want to eat Grandma? That's survival of the fittest. You don't, because she might make a babysitter if you ever have kids? Well, that's survival of the fittest too. You don't want to eat Grandma because the thought makes you sick, and you don't care if you NEVER have kids? Well, in that case, your selfish genes have declared that you will help your siblings raise kids instead, and spread your shared genes that way. See what I mean? It's like Dr. Freud pretending to read your unconscious mind.

If there is no way for something to be false, there is also no way for it to be true.

Go here for another entertaining and enlightening Jerry Fodor article, "Headaches don't have themselves," that bears directly on some of our Spiritual Brain topics.

*Note: Strictly speaking, even if Darwinism is wrong, it is a legitimate theory in science about how species form (natural selection acting on random mutations). Serious Darwinists are not to blame for the silliness dreamed up by evolutionary psychologists - unless they are actualy encouraging them. I suspect, however, that sometimes they ARE ... in which case ...

Jerry "Headaches don't have themselves" Fodor on evolutionary psychology

Jerry Fodor, who points out that headaches do not have themselves, also weighs in on the trouble with "psychological Darwinism" (evolutionary psychology), here and why he, as a "new rationalist," does not accept it, in a review of materialist cognitive science books, such as Pinker's and Plotkin's, in the London Review of Books:

Plotkin says 'neo-Darwinian theory [is] the central theorem of all biology, including behavioural biology'; 'if behaviour is adaptive, then it must be the product of evolution.' Likewise Pinker: 'Natural selection is the only explanation we have of how complex life can evolve . . . [so] natural selection is indispensable to understanding the human mind.' One reply to this argument is to say that there is, after all, an alternative to natural selection as the source of adaptive complexity; you could get some by a miracle. But I'm not a Creationist, nor are any of my New Rationalist friends, as far as I know. Nor do we have to be, since there's another way out of the complexity argument. This is a long story, but here's the gist: it's common ground that the evolution of our behaviour was mediated by the evolution of our brains. So, what matters with regard to the question whether the mind is an adaptation is not how complex our behaviour is, but how much change you would have to make in an ape's brain to produce the cognitive structure of a human mind. And about this, exactly nothing is known. That' because nothing is known about how the structure of our minds depends on the structure of our brains. Nobody even knows which brain structures it is that our cognitive capacities depend on. Unlike our minds, our brains are, by any gross measure, very like those of apes. So it looks as though relatively small alterations of brain structure must have produced very large behavioural discontinuities in the transition from the ancestral apes to us. If that's right, then you don't have to assume that cognitive complexity is shaped by the gradual action of Darwinian selection on prehuman behavioural phenotypes.

A friend says, of Fodor, that he is a common-sense doubter of Darwinian materialism, like David Stove. For one thing, he makes quite clear, as Stove did, why one doesn't need to be a creationist of any type in order to dismiss the evo psycho nonsense to its most suitable venue - fluffy magazine articles on why you can't help cheating on your sweetie 'cause it's in your genes.

My other blog is the Post-Darwinist, detailing events of interest in the intelligent design controversy.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), anoverview of the intelligent design controversy, and of Faith@Science. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

Consciousness: Do headache have themselves?

Philosopher Jerry Fodor, reviewing Galen Strawon’s Consciousness and its place in nature thinks about why materialist explanations for states of mind do not work:

So, then, if everything is made of the same sort of stuff as tables and chairs (as per monism), and if at least some of the things made of that sort of stuff are conscious (there is no doubt that we are), and if there is no way of assembling stuff that isn't conscious that produces stuff that is (there's no emergence), it follows that the stuff that tables, chairs and the bodies of animals (and, indeed, everything else) is made of must itself be conscious. Strawson, having wrestled his angel to a draw, stands revealed as a panpsychist: basic things (protons, for example) are loci of conscious experience. You don't find that plausible? Well, I warned you.

Nor, having swallowed this really enormous camel, does Strawson propose to strain at the gnats. Consider, for example: he thinks (quite rightly) that there are no experiences without subjects of experience; if there's a pain, it must be somebody or something's pain; somebody or something must be in it. What, then, could it be that has the experiences that panpsychists attribute to ultimate things? Nothing purely material, surely, since that would just raise the hard problem all over again. So maybe something immaterial? But monism is in force; since the constituents of tables and chairs are made of matter, so too is everything else. So, Strawson is strongly inclined to conclude, the subjects of the experiences that basic things have must be the experiences themselves. Part of the surcharge that we pay for panpsychism (not, after all, itself an immediately plausible ontology) is that we must give up on the commonsense distinction between the experience and the experiencer. At the basic level, headaches have themselves.

We all know headaches do not have themselves, but if materialists are running the shop we may need to pretend that that is so.