Evolution and psychiatry

The editorial by Abed (2000) demands further comment. The author writes as if unaware that ‘evolutionary psychology’ is only the latest in a line of contentious theories of biological determinism that includes 19th-century ‘eugenics’ and 20th-century ‘sociobiology’ (Rose & Rose, 2000). Moreover, the version of evolution put forward by the author has been rejected as grossly oversimplistic by many modern evolutionary biologists (Lewontin, 2000). The author appears to believe that natural selection is the sole mechanism of evolution, which has, over aeons, honed every detail of all life forms into states of exquisite adaptation. Our minds and brains, accordingly are viewed as perfectly adapted to the hunter-gatherer way of life prevalent on the savannah of half a million years ago.

In fact, there are many elements in the living world which have evolved through processes other than natural selection and which are neutral or even negative with respect to adaptation (Sober & Wilson, 1998). The mind and brain are therefore much more complex than is suggested by theories which reduce ‘natural’ human behaviour to that of a particular imagined past.

Evolutionary psychologists reveal their lack of balance and antipathy to complexity most clearly when they ‘discuss’ the social sciences. No references are cited by Abed (2000) when he implies, disingenuously, that all social scientists believe the mind starts as a tabula rasa. And his statement, “social and cultural factors cannot be considered as separate and independent causative agents acting independently on individual minds” exemplifies both the bias and the flawed logic of his position. Social, cultural, economic and historical explanations need in no sense imply the irrelevance of intrapsychic factors. They differ from psychological explanations as a biomechanical explanation of muscle contraction differs from a biochemical one. So while some, such as Abed, find conceptual pluralism unsatisfactory, it is probably the only realistic approach to a true understanding of the complexities and unpredictabilities of human behaviour.

Finally, there is no mention of the fact that, historically, ‘biology-as-destiny’ models have been used to legitimate a range of shameful practices, including sterilisation of people with disabilities and vicious racism. Although it is an open question whether such theories inevitably lead in that direction, evolutionary psychologists should at least acknowledge their discipline's own ‘evolutionary history’.