More Abuse of Evolution to Explain Social Behavior

During a friendly discussion with a a friend with whom I attended college a while ago, I argued that it can be stated unequivocally that the degree of scientific literacy on the part of the public has risen remarkably both in the place of my residence and in world populations at large. Implicit in my argument was that the sheer number of articles being published that address scientific principles has most definitely raised the appreciation of science.

Looking through this article by dDan Slater in the NYT and an early blog post here leads me to consider that I may have made my point with more confidence than is warranted. To begin with, the NYT article states that while some evidence for evolution is sound, it is often wound together with other theories to explain human behavior in ways that are not defensible. As the story states, Charles Darwin too extrapolated from evolution to explain the reproductive choices of male and female human beings in ways that are not defensible and amount to pure speculation. As Slater argues, behavioral scientists pick up sensible but unproven hypothesis and assumptions then proceed to gather evidence as proof of those assumptions. As he continues, many scientists have beguin to dispute the theories that have emerged from speculation dressed up as science.

This situation is highlighted by the blog post that I refer to in the preceding paragraph. Back then, I was arguing that many students of economicssts are dressing up their theories in evolutionary language. tThere is very little evidence that evolution supplied humanity with pre-programmed behavior and it is time for a push-back against these interesting hypotheses and they must headers to article be called out for what they are- entertaining guesses.