In the previous article, Douglas Kenrick explores the idea that fundamental evolutionary motives shape our thoughts and behaviour. While this argument is central to the discipline of evolutionary psychology, it has not been without its critics. The major criticisms of the evolutionary psychology approach have been summarised by Linda Gannon (2002). One main criticism is that it is not possible to falsify the assumption that human thoughts and behaviour are driven by evolved predispositions, which makes the approach unscientific.
The evolutionary approach has also been described as reductionist, because it attempts to make sense of complex human cognition and behaviour with an overly simple explanation (for example, ‘his genes made him behave that way’). This is a very limiting perspective, because it means that it does not account for environmental aspects that we know can play very important roles in affecting our thoughts and behaviour, such as the influence of role models, the social groups we belong to, societal laws and norms, etc.
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