JERRY COYNE is an evolutionary biologist and a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. He is the coauthor (with H. Allen Orr) of Speciation.
For me, one idea that is dangerous and possibly true is an extreme form of evolutionary psychology—the view that many behaviors of modern humans were genetically hardwired (or softwired) in our distant ancestors by natural selection.
The reason I say that this idea might be true is that we cannot be sure of the genetic and evolutionary origin of most human behaviors. It is difficult or impossible to test many of the conjectures of evolutionary psychology. Thus, we can say only that behaviors such as the sexual predilections of men and women and the extreme competitiveness of males are consistent with evolutionary psychology.
But consistency arguments have two problems. First, they are not hard scientific proof. Are we satisfied that sonnets are literary extensions of the phallus simply because some male poets might have used them to seduce females? Arguments like this fail to meet the normal standards of scientific evidence.
Second, as is well known, one can make consistency arguments for virtually every human behavior. Given the possibilities of kin selection (natural selection for behaviors that do no good for their performers but are advantageous to their kin) and reciprocal altruism, and our ignorance of the environments of our ancestors, there is no trait that cannot be explained by some evolutionary story. Indeed, stories have been concocted to explain the evolution of even such manifestly maladaptive behaviors as homosexuality, priestly celibacy, and extreme forms of altruism (e.g., self-sacrifice during wartime). But surely we cannot consider it scientifically proved that genes for homosexuality are maintained in human populations by kin selection. Not only are we ignorant of the genetic basis of behaviors like homosexuality but we also lack any information about how natural selection acted on such genes.
Nevertheless, much of human behavior appears to conform to Darwinian expectations. Males are promiscuous and females coy. We usually treat our relatives better than we do other people. The problem is where to draw the line between those behaviors that are so obviously adaptive that no one doubts their evolutionary origin (e.g., sleeping and eating), those which are probably but not as obviously adaptive (e.g., human sexual behavior and our fondness for fats and sweets), and those whose adaptive basis is purely speculative (e.g., the origin of art or our love of the outdoors).
Although I have been highly critical of evolutionary psychology, this is not from political motives, nor do I think that the discipline is in principle misguided. Rather, I have been critical because evolutionary psychologists seem unwilling to draw lines between what can be taken as demonstrated and what remains speculative—an attitude that has made the discipline more of a faith than a science. This lack of rigor threatens the reputation of all of evolutionary biology, making it seem as if we spend most of our time dreaming up ingenious stories. If we are truly to understand human nature and use this knowledge constructively, we must distinguish through rigorous research the probably true from the possibly true.
So, why do I see evolutionary psychology as dangerous? I think it is because I am fearful of seeing myself and my fellow humans as mere marionettes dancing on genetic strings. I would like to think we have immense freedom to better ourselves as individuals and create a just and egalitarian society. Granted, genetics is not destiny, but neither are we completely free of our evolutionary baggage. Might genetics really rein in our ability to change? If so, then some claims of evolutionary psychology give us convenient but dangerous excuses for behaviors that seem unacceptable. It is all too easy, for example, for philandering males to excuse their behavior as evolutionarily justified. Evolutionary psychologists argue that it is possible to overcome our evolutionary heritage. But what if it is not so easy to take this Dawkinsian road and “rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.”