John Wilkins Likes Sociobiology

 
Wilkins is reviewing a soon-to-be-published paper by David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson [The two Wilsons on sociobiology]. These two are on a recent tear promoting a new, acceptable, version of group selection. John Wilkins declares that, "I have recently (i.e., in the last five years) come to be an unflinching sociobiologist ..."

This may raise some eyebrows but, as usual, John threads his way through the minefield of misconceptions about sociobiology to arrive at a position that he can support. (I don't agree with him, but that debate is for another time.)

What I particularly like about John's posting is how he separates evolutionary psychology from sociobiology by pointing out the deep flaws in the discipline of evolutionary psychology.

Evolutionary psychology has two major flaws in my opinion. One is that it is almost always adaptationist even when no evidence of adaptiveness is available. Adaptation is, as G. C. Williams noted of group selection explanations, an onerous hypothesis, to be supported or not used. It is too easy to come up with "possible scenarios", let alone possible adaptations. Such explanations need to follow the evidence rather than use, as EvPsych does, a priori arguments from the self-evident truth of natural selection and the nature of evolution.

The second major flaw relates to this. On the (a priori) assumption that selection always favours modularity, EvPsychologists claim that most of the human behavioural repertoire and its underlying neurology is modular. Each module is, as the literature has it, "informationally encapsulated and domain specific", which roughly means that it does one thing well and only that thing, without hints from the rest of our cognitive and sensorimotor system.

I agree with John 100%, although I might add one or two other flaws. I'm not sure the Wilsons would agree, however. I wonder if John knows whether E.O. Wilson is as opposed to evolutionary psychology as he (John) is?

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