Furthermore, it tends toward viewing the vast majority of psychological traits, certainly the most important ones, as the result of past adaptions, which has generated significant controversy and criticism from competing fields.
[14][15] A number of cognitive scientists have criticized the modularity hypothesis, citing neurological evidence of brain plasticity and changes in neural networks in response to environmental stimuli and personal experiences.
[16] Neurobiological research does not support the assumption by evolutionary psychologists that higher-level systems in the neocortex responsible for complex functions are massively modular.
[17][18] Peters (2013) cites neurological research showing that higher-order neocortical areas can become functionally specialized by way of synaptic plasticity and the experience-dependent changes that take place at the synapse during learning and memory.
[21] Critics have suggested that Cosmides and Tooby use untested evolutionary assumptions to eliminate rival reasoning theories and that their conclusions contain inferential errors.
[17] Humans share a significant portion of their genome with other species and have corresponding DNA sequences so that the remaining genes must contain instructions for building specialized circuits that are absent in other mammals.
[27] The evolutionary psychologists John Tooby and Leda Cosmides state that research is confined to certainties about the past, such as pregnancies only occurring in women, and that humans lived in groups.
Buss notes that while some critics agree that the general environment is known, the specific selection pressures might never be understood due to being highly context sensitive.
However, Buss argues that this can be solved by proposing different evolutionary psychology hypotheses and uses data, confirmation strategies and discovery heuristics to determine which ones can be advanced.
As an example, critics point out that many current traits likely evolved to serve different functions from those they do now, confounding attempts to make backward inferences into history.
Hagen argues that hypotheses compete to provide the best explanation of a phenomenon, where "best" is measured via criteria like predicting new and surprising observations, parsimony, coherence and so on.
In addition, Murphy argues that if the "time machine" argument was applied to other sciences, it would lead to absurd results - Murphy observes that cosmologists have confirmed predictions about the Big Bang by studying available astronomical evidence and current understanding of particle physics, with no need for a time machine to travel back to the beginning of the universe.
Murphy thus concludes that the onus is on the sceptics to prove why evolutionary psychology is allegedly untestable on "time machine" grounds if other historical sciences are not, as "methods should be judged across the board, not singled out for ridicule in one context.
Some studies have been criticized for their tendency to attribute to evolutionary processes elements of human cognition that may be attributable to social processes (e.g. preference for particular physical features in mates), cultural artifacts (e.g. patriarchy and the roles of women in society), or dialectical considerations (e.g. behaviours in which biology interacts with society, as when a biologically determined skin colour determines how one is treated).
Evolutionary psychologists are frequently criticized for ignoring the vast bodies of literature in psychology, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, linguistics, philosophy, history, and the natural sciences.
Both sides of the debate stress that statements such as "biology vs. environment" and "genes vs. culture" amount to false dichotomies, and outspoken critics of sociobiology such as Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose and Leon Kamin helped to popularise a "dialectical" approach to questions of human behaviour, where biology and environment interact in complex ways to produce what we see.
[49] Edward Hagen argued evolutionary psychology's reliance on adaptive explanations is grounded in the fact that the existence and survival of life is highly improbable.
[52] Pinker makes a similar argument, arguing that evolutionary psychology has long held the view that things such as art, music, science, religion and dreams are probably byproducts or spandrels of other mental traits.
Even when evolutionary psychologists acknowledge the influence of the environment, they reduce its role to that of an activator or trigger of the predetermined developmental instructions presumed to be encoded in a person's genes.
Lickliter and Honeycutt have stated that the assumption of genetic determinism is most evident in the theory that learning and reasoning are governed by innate, domain-specific modules.
Evolutionary psychologists assume that modules preexist individual development and lie dormant in the structure of the organism, awaiting activation by some (usually unspecified) experiential events.
As an example she cites Martin Daly and Margot Wilson's theory that stepfathers are more abusive because they lack the nurturing instinct of natural parents and can increase their reproductive success in this way.
[72] Steven Pinker argues that the charge of reductionism is a straw man and that evolutionary psychologists are aware that organisms develop due to complex interactions between genes and the environment.
"[74] Franks also states that "The arguments in no sense count against a general evolutionary explanation of psychology" and that by relaxing assumptions the problems may be avoided, although this may reduce the ability to make detailed models.
[citation needed] Smith et al. (2001) criticized Thornhill and Palmer's hypothesis that a predisposition to rape in certain circumstances might be an evolved sexually dimorphic psychological adaptation.
[70] It has also been suggested by critics that evolutionary psychologists' theories and interpretations of empirical data rely heavily on ideological assumptions about race and gender.
Today, biologists denounce the Naturalistic Fallacy because they want to describe the natural world honestly, without people deriving morals about how we ought to behave -- as in: If birds and beasts engage in adultery, infanticide, cannibalism, it must be OK.
[27][97] Linguist and activist Noam Chomsky has said that evolutionary psychologists often ignore evidence that might harm the political status quo: The founder of what is now called "sociobiology" or "evolutionary psychology"-the natural historian and anarchist Peter Kropotkin-concluded from his investigations of animals and human life and society that "mutual aid" was a primary factor in evolution, which tended naturally toward communist anarchism...Of course, Kropotkin is not considered the founding figure of the field and is usually dismissed if mentioned at all, because his quasi-Darwinian speculations led to unwanted conclusions.
[98] In a review of Steven Pinker's book The Blank Slate, which draws partially on evolutionary psychology, Louis Menand wrote: In general, the views that Pinker derives from 'the new sciences of human nature' are mainstream Clinton-era views: incarceration is regrettable but necessary; sexism is unacceptable, but men and women will always have different attitudes toward sex; dialogue is preferable to threats of force in defusing ethnic and nationalist conflicts; most group stereotypes are roughly correct, but we should never judge an individual by group stereotypes; rectitude is all very well, but 'noble guys tend to finish last'; and so on.
[99]Evolutionary psychologist Glenn Wilson argues that "promoting recognition of the true power and role of instincts is not the same as advocating the total abandonment of social restraint".