Miles, James (2006). “The Accidental Creationists: Why Evolutionary Psychology is Bad for the Teaching of Evolution”
This article cannot be passed by without addressing the arguments surrounding it. But rather than take a common approach, staying within the highlighted fields (shall we call them ‘realms’) of evolutionary biology, sociobiology, biosocial anthropology and evolutionary psychology, I will instead take a general social scientific approach to them. Therefore, what follows is not a ‘natural scientific’ review of a paper that crosses boundaries between natural science, philosophy and social science, which goes there and back again several times in between. It is rather a social scientific approach to an issue that treads on multi-disciplinary grounds.
Comparing anthropology, psychology and sociology would itself shed interesting light on the argument that ‘selfish gene’ proponents are apparently avoiding. Should the hierarchicalists – ‘theorists that argue for multi-level selection’ – constitute a significant school of thought within their respective sphere? Or should the proponents of spotlighting on lower levels win out over those who persist that top-down and bottom-up theories are equally well applied or worn out in social scientific thought? “The foundational belief that morality is biological adaptation” (Miles on Evo Psych) takes an entirely different focus when various social-cultural perspectives are considered and plural viewpoints consulted instead of assuming a singular ‘enlightened’ (western) scientific objectivity that rules/controls the entire spectrum of morality.
“Morality is not found outside the human world” – James Miles
Does it not therefore make sense to study the issue of morality from a humanitarian perspective instead of merely applying a zoological or botanical method? Social scientists don’t often debate about free will; they assume it.
It is all about individuals or it is all about groups – this is the dilemma that sociology has been facing for over 150 years. Does an investigator reify the notion of ‘society’ or ‘community’ at the cost of individual influences and effectiveness? Or, on the other hand, does he or she relativize the discourse by practicing a kind of methodological individualism; that is, reducing changes (cf. morphology) in the group to the workings of individuals? This dilemma has not been entirely ‘solved’ or ‘proven,’ but a balance has been reached by social scientists that apparently evolutionary psychologists, population geneticists and ethologists have not yet realized.
This is all unimportant, however, in the face of evolutionary universalism, as Ted Davis and others assert. Theistic evolutionists are not immune from the charge of over-inflating the relevance of evolutionary theory outside of their own spheres of knowledge and specialization. This amounts to over-inflating the areas they are interested in at the costs of other fruitful areas of research. ‘Evolutionary stable strategies,’ for example, are current in economic theories, especially American institutional economics. Thus, if evolution *really* relates to *everything,* then even the words I just wrote and which are now being read are a result of mere ‘change-over-time’ underneath a broad process philosophy that admits of nothing static and nothing eternal. ‘Flux’ is the governing dynamic. Evolutionary psychology in such a scenario is merely a small part of the overall problem presented by evolutionary theory.
As it appears, those opposed to the approach of evolutionary psychology are really barking up the wrong trees in trying to bring its perjuries to justice. The secret of the codex lies in areas outside of purely natural science to decipher. The ‘human factor’ remains under-investigated and largely un-acknowledged by those who study the lower levels at the cost of higher level integration and synthesis.
If ‘natural selection’ operates only at the level of the gene, then at what level do social sciences operate? Group-selectionism, the great fear of selfish-gene proponents, is best dealt with by those who study groups, and not only individuals. This identifies a great schism between individualist psychology and social psychology in the present day.
Should the social scientific disciplines as a whole be sold out to memetic models, flaunted by an eminent British ethologist as if they were the gospel truth for human beings, who are supposedly not-special animals? When will natural scientists speak out to defend the sovereignty of social sciences by expressing the limitations of their own domains of expertise? Social scientists, willing to confront the scholarly legitimacies and illegitimacies of evolutionary psychology, must be supported rather than condescended upon as merely ‘soft’ variations of the ‘true’ science that ‘enlightens’ human knowledge about the environments in which ‘they/we’ live.
“[T]hough selfish-gene theorists never actually supported EP, they never sufficiently distanced themselves from it either” – James Miles
The fallout of the dispute over evolutionary psychology should not be reserved for only biologists, philosophers of biology or ‘mind,’ ethologists, zoologists, taxonomists and others concerned mainly with ‘the nature of’ human existence. If it is thus reduced or contained, the proponents of ‘naturalism’ will have won the game, no matter how hard the opposing ‘non-natural’ evidence or coherent the philosophical framework may be. Evolutionary psychology is instead an extreme manifestation of the tendency toward process philosophies penetrating all manner of academic disciplines, at the cost of constant, static, non-process models that evolutionary biology is supposed to have single-handedly abolished.
“[S]elfish-gene theorists refuse to challenge evolutionary psychologists” – James Miles
Likewise, theistic evolutionists and evolutionary creationists apparently refuse to challenge evolutionism, though they cannot sustain the criticism that is due to come from non-natural sciences.
James Miles has revealed a flashpoint in the discourse of evolution that most natural scientists would rather avoid. This is likely because confronting it mandates a respectful shifting of power away from the disciplines that unknowingly support Dawkins, Dennett, Ridley, Pinker, Cronin, Smith, Wilson, Hamilton and others. It need not destroy biology altogether, however, to more carefully define its boundaries such that ‘natural selection’ is accorded clear and present limitations, which must not encroach upon social sciences. Supplementation and collaboration is the preferred approach.
“[H]ow far we are willing to go for science?” Miles asks. It seems the question is how far are natural scientists willing to go to allow social scientists space to pursue their disciplinary interests without the heavy hand of scientism intruding upon their respective domains. Science as a seeking for truth would be better for it if scientific investigations that involve human-made things and the ‘human factor’ generally were afforded their respective place in the ‘evolutionary’ table of relevance. If not, the group-selection vs. individual-selfish gene selection quagmire might continue for years to come.
Evolutionists brave enough and concise enough to unseat Dawkins’ memetics, especially those who are morally interested, might choose to convey that their contribution to public understanding of science for people is more important than intractable disciplinary bickering.
Gregory Arago
“I believe that if you strip the Origin of Species of its theoretical part, it still remains one of the greatest encyclopedias of biological doctrine that any one man ever brought forth; and I believe that, if you take it as the embodiment of an hypothesis, it is destined to be the guide of biological and psychological speculation for the next three or four generations.” – Thomas Huxley
“American psychology today owes its form and substance as much to the influence of evolutionary theory as to any other idea or individual.” – Duane Schultz and Sydney Schultz (A History of Modern Psychology 4th Ed., 1987)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Davis"
Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006 6:23 PM
Subject: Evolutionary Psychology and Free Will
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 recommend that interested parties read it and comment here. Dr Miles is not saying anything new or unusual--I know of highly similar statements going back to at least the 1920s if not further--but his application to the current controversy is illuminating and stimulating. With his permission, I have made available a copy of the essay on my webpage: http://home.messiah.edu/~tdavis/James%20Miles%20Essay.htm
I invite us to discuss it!
Ted
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Received on Mon May 1 18:50:41 2006
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