Category: general

Is evolutionary psychology really rational choice theory?

I recently came across a couple of postings on a Psychology Today blog, Remaining puzzle #7 solved: Why children may love their parents, and Stump the evolutionary psychologist: Remaining puzzles, both by Satoshi Kanazawa. Dr. Kanazawa is a self-proclaimed ‘evolutionary psychologist’ (by that, I just mean that I’m not the one applying the label — he is) who is affiliated with Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Department of Psychology at University College London, and the Department of Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London. Listed as one of his primary qualifications is his co-authorship, with the late Alan S. Miller, of Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters.

In the first of the posts, ‘Stump the evolutionary psychologist,’ Dr. Kanazawa writes about his blog, The Scientific Fundamentalist:

Regardless of the particular topic at hand, the consistent theme in my blog has been to illuminate the power of evolutionary psychology to explain human cognition and behavior — what we think, how we feel, what we want, and what we do. The range of topics covered in this blog reflects my belief, shared by all evolutionary psychologists, that evolutionary psychology provides the best and the most ultimate (as opposed to the proximate) explanations of human behavior.

The fact that evolutionary psychology can explain so much of human behavior, however, does not mean that it can explain everything. Yet. Although I have absolutely no doubt that evolutionary psychology (along with behavior genetics and cognitive neuroscience) can eventually explain all of human cognitions and behavior some day, the day is still far ahead. There is still so much that we do not know.

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