Evolutionary Psychology

Excerpt from Newsweek|On Science

On Second Thought
by Sharon Begley

"it's fascinating how scientists with an intellectual stake in a particular side of a debate tend to see flaws in studies that undercut their dearly held views, and to interpret and even ignore "facts" to fit their views. No wonder the historian Thomas Kuhn concluded almost 50 years ago that a scientific paradigm topples only when the last of its powerful adherents dies. The few essays in which scientists do admit they were wrong— and about something central to their reputation—therefore stand out.

The most fascinating backpedaling is by scientists who have long pushed evolutionary psychology. This field holds that we all carry genes that led to reproductive success in the Stone Age, and that as a result men are genetically driven to be promiscuous and women to be coy, that men have a biological disposition to rape and to kill mates who cheat on them, and that every human behavior is "adaptive"—that is, helpful to reproduction. But as Harvard biologist Marc Hauser now concedes, evidence is "sorely missing" that language, morals and many other human behaviors exist because they help us mate and reproduce."

"You (Anglicans) are the tree from which we (Baptists) have grown." -Dr. Albert Mohler, the 9th president of the Southern Baptist Convention and a leading conservative voice in American Culture, Mere Anglican conference 1/09.