Left-wing Creationism? | Are the critics of evolutionary psychology denying science?
Channel: Science versus Propaganda
Date: 2019-11-30

It has become a culture war talking point that the social sciences have been corrupted by left-wing bias. This bias supposedly drives them to insist that the mind is a “blank slate” and to reject the insights of evolutionary psychology and the truth of human inequality.

But are the critics of evolutionary psychology really politically motived science deniers? Or is something else going on here?


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Bibliography by topic:

Evolutionary psychology (proponents):

The Adapted Mind, Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides & John Tooby (1992).

Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer, Leda Cosmides & John Tooby (1997): https://www.cep.ucsb.edu/primer.html

The Evolutionary Psychology FAQ, John Hagen (2004): http://human.projects.anth.ucsb.edu/epfaq/evpsychfaq_full.html

Evolutionary psychology (skeptics):

Evolutionary Psychology and the challenge of adaptive explanation, Russell D. Gray, Megan Heaney & Scott Fairhall (2003): http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/ldc/GrayEP.pd

The Seven Sins of Evolutionary Psychology, Jaak Panksepp & Jules B Panksepp (2000): http://www.flyfishingdevon.co.uk/salmon/year3/psy364criticisms-evolutionary-psychology/panksepp_seven_sins.pdf

Adapting Minds, David Buller (2005).

Behaviourism and modularity:

“Behaviourism” entry at the SEP: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/behaviorism

A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, Noam Chomsky (1959): https://chomsky.info/1967____/

Modularity of Mind, Jerry A. Fodor (1983).

The mind doesn’t work that way, Jerry Fodor (2000).

Adaptationism:

Adaptation and Natural Selection, George C. Williams (1966).

The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm:  A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme, Stephen Jay Gould & Richard C. Lewontin: https://faculty.washington.edu/lynnhank/GouldLewontin.pdf

The fall and rise of Dr Pangloss: adaptationism and the Spandrels paper 20 years later, Massimo Pigliucci & Jonathan Kaplan: http://www.docente.unife.it/giorgio.bertorelle/didattica_insegnamenti/biologia-evoluzionistica-1/Spandrels20yearslater.pdf

“Blank slatism” and “progressive creationism”:

Haidt lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b86dzTFJbkc

Buss paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328975314_Psychological_Barriers_to_Evolutionary_Psychology_Ideological_Bias_and_Coalitional_Adaptations

The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker (2002).

Google Memo: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf

Geoffrey Miller in Quillette: https://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-respond/

Colin Wright article: https://quillette.com/2018/11/30/the-new-evolution-deniers/

Larry Cahill article: https://quillette.com/2019/03/29/denying-the-neuroscience-of-sex-differences/

Saletan's "Liberal Creationism": https://slate.com/technology/2007/11/liberal-creationism.html

Shermer's "The Liberals’ War on Science": https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-liberals-war-on-science/

Young's speech to ISIR: http://www.nosacredcows.co.uk/blog/3069/article.html

Young's "Progressive Creationism": https://quillette.com/2018/12/11/progressive-creationism-a-review-of-a-dangerous-idea/

Winegard’s article: https://quillette.com/2019/05/03/selective-blank-slatism-and-ideologically-motivated-misunderstandings/