Five Fallacies in Thinking about Evolution and Human Psychology
Steven J. Scher University-College of the Cariboo

The use of evolutionary concepts to explain psychological phenomena is becoming more and more popular. At the same time, attempts to apply Darwinian thinking to psychology has faced strong, sometimes vituperative criticism. Proponents and critics of evolutionary psychology both commit several fallacies when applying evolutionary ideas to human psychology. These fallacies make it difficult for critics and proponents to reasonably discuss the validity of evolutionary approaches. This paper reviews the current state of evolutionary psychology within the context of 5 of these fallacies. It is suggested that evolutionary psychology should proceed in a doubly multi-level approach, examining the causality, evolutionary history, ontongeny and current function of psychological mechanisms across levels of analysis from genes to culture.


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