Re: Evolutionary Psychology and Free Will

On Mon, 1 May 2006, Ted Davis wrote:

> The most recent issue of the Reports of the National Center for Science
> Education (May-Aug 2005) contains an essay by British evolutionary
> theorist James Miles entitled, "The Accidental Creationists: Why
> Evolutionary Psychology is Bad for the Teaching of Evolution."
>
> The entire essay is well written and provocative.

I have
 One technical scientific response.
 One sociology-of-science response.
 One philosophical response.

 (1) His fifth-from-last sentence reads, "Selfish-gene theory, as
currently formulated, does not - cannot - support the claims of the
evolutionary psychologists."

  I expect he will get many letters correcting this scientific claim.
  Miles seems to be asserting that all evolutionary psychology theories of
morality rely on group selection. It's true that some theorists (e.g.
D.S. Wilson) argue in favor of group selection.
  But many others (e.g. L. Cronk, R.D. Alexander, M. Ruse, E.O. Wilson,
H. Cronin, G. Miller) propose evolutionary psychology theories of morailty
which rely on individual selection, seemingly compatible with "selfish
gene" theory.
  Still others (e.g. F. Ayala, S. Gould, R. Lewontin, S. Oyama, B.
Schwartz, I. Vine, E. Smith) propose evolutionary psychology theories of
morailty in which morality is a side-effect of other selected traits
and/or a non-genetic cultural phenomenon.

  (Based on his fourth-from-last sentence, which reads "Morality is not a
biological adaptation," it sounds like this author is very convinced that
this third group is correct.)

  (2) Selfish-gene theory can be computationally modeled, and the theory
can help explain some observed phenomena in nature. But group-selection
theory can also be computationally modeled, and is a robust strategy in
certain circumstances, and has the potential to explain some observed
phenomena in nature (although I don't know of any observed phenomena which
require it yet).
  Here's my sociology-of-science comment: Some hard-core believers in
selfish-gene theory very much want to explain _everything_ in evolutionary
biology via that one model, via that one mechanism. They're hoping that
no other mechanisms (no matter how potentially valid those mechanisms are
theoretically) play an important role.

  (3) I believe that the author's third-to-last sentence, "And free will
is, as Darwin said, a delusion." is ... an example of a scientist making a
gross oversimplificaiton when talking outside his area of expertise.

  I addressed this question in the chapter that I contributed to
"Evolution and Ethics," (Eerdmans, edited by Philip Clayton & Jeffrey
Schloss) so I'll just quote that here:
  "I believe that the scientific fields of sociobiology and evolutionary
psychology are not the source of [some authors'] denial of free will.
The source of the belief that free will is an illusion is a philosophical
commitment to certain kinds of Materialism - that is, that everything that
exists is ultimately reducible to mechanistic, material interactions
between fundamental physical particles. It is these versions of
philosophical Materialism, not evolutionary theories per se, which lead to
a denial of free will.
   "If anything, evolutionary studies of human behavior undercut the
notion that all human behaviors are strictly determined.... The various
scientific hypotheses within evolutionary psychology do seem to agree
that, for human beings, behavioral plasticity is adaptive. Because humans
are intelligent and live in complex social groups, individuals who have a
great range of possible behaviors tend to be more reproductively
successful than individuals who have a limited range of possible
behaviors. Individuals who have a greater ability to predict outcomes of
behaviors and select behaviors accordingly tend to be more reproductively
successful than other individuals. Behavioral plasticity is adaptive.
Free will, assuming it is possible at all, would therefore seem to be
adaptive. An evolutionary picture of human behavior should, it seems to
me, actually strengthen belief that some form of free will is possible."

Loren Haarsma
Received on Mon May 1 14:20:55 2006