Stephen J Gould’s Critique of Evolutionary Psychology

Stephen J. Goulds Criticism of the Theory Evolutionary Psychology

Stephen J Gould’s criticism of evolutionary psychology is actually from the perspective of an evolutionist. He wrote a piece for the New York Review of Books in 1997 which became an exchange on the principles, assumptions, and problems of evolutionary psychology (Gould seems to be taking on Steven Pinkers work How the Mind Works along with other popular titles). Goulds thesis in “Darwininan Fundmentalism” is this:

Evolutionary psychology could, in my view, become a fruitful science by replacing its current penchant for narrow, and often barren, speculation with respect for the pluralistic range of available alternatives that are just as evolutionary in status, more probable in actual occurrence, and not limited to the blinkered view that evolutionary explanations must identify adaptation produced by natural selection.

Gould criticizes what he calls the Darwinian fundamentalists (aka evolutionary psychologists including Pinker et al):

The irony of this situation is twofold. First, as illustrated by the quotation above, Darwin himself strongly opposed the ultras of his own day. (In one sense, this nicety of history should not be relevant to modern concerns; maybe Darwin was overcautious, and modern ultras therefore out-Darwin Darwin for good reason. But since the modern ultras push their line with an almost theological fervor, and since the views of founding fathers do matter in religion, though supposedly not in science, Darwin’s own fierce opposition does become a factor in judgment.) Second, the invigoration of modern evolutionary biology with exciting nonselectionist and nonadaptationist data from the three central disciplines of population genetics, developmental biology, and paleontology (see examples below) makes our pre-millennial decade an especially unpropitious time for Darwinian fundamentalism—and seems only to reconfirm Darwin’s own eminently sensible pluralism.

Goulds article suggest that Pinkers fundamentalism arises partially out of a desire to root out “purpose” or design explanations (he in essence accuses pinker of sacrificing truth to ideology). Gould further points out that Pinker knows previous examples and instances of natural selection can’t be tested in the laboratory. Gould posits the following query:

But does all the rest of evolution—all the phenomena of organic diversity, embryological architecture, and genetic structure, for example—flow by simple extrapolation from selection’s power to create the good design of organisms?

Gould continues:

But selection cannot suffice as a full explanation for many aspects of evolution; for other types and styles of causes become relevant, or even prevalent, in domains both far above and far below the traditional Darwinian locus of the organism. These other causes are not, as the ultras often claim, the product of thinly veiled attempts to smuggle purpose back into biology. These additional principles are as directionless, nonteleological, and materialistic as natural selection itself

Gould then goes on to explain how his branch of evolution palentology has taken down some of the core assumptions of the standard Darwinist version of evolution. Gould then goes on to indict Daniel Dennet’s evolutionary fundamentalism. He then closes by calling evolutionary fundamentalism like Dennets and Pinkers:

a dogmatism that threatens to compromise the true complexity, subtlety (and beauty) of evolutionary theory and the explanation of life’s history.

You can see the remainder of the Gould vs. Pinker vs. ????? exchange on evolutionary psychologyhere on Gould’s unofficial website. (to be fair–I believe Dan Dennet weighed in on this as well, but is not in the exchange–ironically what folks like Pinker would generally accuse others of doing. Further, Stephen J. Gould criticizes Pinker for his misunderstanding what spandrels or “architectural byproducts, or automatic consequences, of building something in a certain way ” and other forms of nonadaption– as well as a conflation of spandrels with “functional shift”)