| Psychology
can be interesting, boring, funny and occasionally insightful.
On this page we will concentrate on the extremes... there are enough journal articles around to deal with the worthy but bland. Each issue will try and pick out one truly brilliant psychology study, one crackpot idea, or one nasty piece of work... You probably wont agree... one persons meat is anothers persons nut cutlet!!! |
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| Bad
ideas in psychology number 24... Evolutionary psychology... and just about everything... |
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| Evolutionary
Psychology is really fashionable at the moment - any TV programme
at the moment about psychology is likely to be about how our genes
have programmed us so that we can't escape our 'stone age' past -
men fancy young fit females because they unconsciously want a good
fertile reproductive partner! 'Psychology review' and even the current A level Psychology syllabuses have 'sections' on how aggression, altruism, prejudice, religion, and even 'Picasso' can be 'explained' by an evolutionary 'story'! |
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| No one (with
any sense) would dispute Darwin's theory of evolution but the Ultra-Darwinians
really have gone too far… It is comforting to think that all
human behaviour can be explained away by the action of our genes…
Racism, criminal behaviour, even compulsive shopping. It means we
can justify all sorts unacceptable behaviours (like older men chasing
younger females!), and don't need to look at the society that
produced those behaviours. So what's the core problem? According to people like the evolutionary biologist, Steven Rose or the psychologist Nicky Hayes, Evolutionary Psychology is just... not good science. The real problem is disproof… for example. |
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 boys will be boys! |
Take
a human behaviour (promiscuity in men?). According to evolutionary
psychology, men like to 'sleep around' because they are trying to
'fertilise' lots of females so that their genes will be passed on
to the next generation. Women on the other hand can only have a few
children so they will look for rich men with big cars to look after
their small 'brood' (and remember this is an unconscious driven act!). The problem with this story is that it sounds good, and we can even look at chimp behaviour to support this theory, but where is the evidence. The basic argument is that if the behaviour exists in the present it must have been adaptive in the distant past (Stone Age humans!) and then a 'story' is created about why it must have been. This is OK but where are the records - it certainly isn't in the fossils! (Also who are these men being promiscuous with?) Maybe the females are testing out the males to see who will be the best provider - or are they just being conned? |
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| An alternative
theory might suggest that in times of hardship males might be better
served by looking after a small family who have some chance of survival
rather than leaving many impregnated females to fend for themselves! But which theory is right (if either?) - we have no way of knowing… a gene for 'faithfulness' is just as plausible as a gene for promiscuity… but it would not be quite as interesting to the randy old psychology professor… (I can't help it… it is in my programming!) For a more detailed and serious argument read some Steven Rose. (see links) |
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