Prospects for Evolutionary Policy

Abstract

A small minority of biologists, psychologists and philosophers have recently tried to show, in various ways, that evolutionary psychology is of relevance to politics and to policy makers. Two widely accepted arguments still suffice (with only a little tweaking) to dismiss such attempts to forge a link between evolution and policy. The first denies the link between adaptation and fixity, the second denies that ‘adaptive thinking’ is of strong heuristic benefit. Finally, the silence of many evolutionary explanations with respect to developmental mechanisms should also make us suspicious of the relevance of evolutionary psychology to matters of policy.