We're Not Fred or Wilma

摘要

Evolutionary psychology is a research paradigm that proposes that the human mind consists of cognitive modules that evolved in response to selection pressures faced by our Pleistocene predecessors. The discipline's short history has not lacked controversy—the late Stephen Jay Gould even suggested that evolutionary psychology does not qualify as science. Thus, the contribution to the debates on evolutionary psychology David Buller makes in Adapting Minds is important for two reasons. First, Buller, a philosopher at Northern Illinois University, approaches the subject from the outside—not as a psychologist or evolutionary biologist. While on a semester's leave in London, he was struck by a television broadcast on human sexual behavior. The topic was interesting enough, but in addition Desmond Morris was on hand to explain with great confidence that our mating habits are a reflection of our evolutionary past.