About Knee-Jerk Evolutionism

[Updated 18 June 2010]

This post is always going to be a work in progress, as there is a lot to say about it and there seems to be no end to the lunacy of those who adhere to Evolutionist ideology.

Normally I steer away from the design-evolution debate, but I think it will be useful for public discourse — and also for the Edhai project — to articulate some thoughts about what I call “knee-jerk evolutionism.”

I use the term “evolutionism” because for many writers, researchers, and commentators, a belief in evolution rises to the level of ideology — 10 percent science and 90 percent disingenuous credulity.

I use the descriptor “knee-jerk” because for many people evolution has become an unquestionable underlying assumption and is often trotted out for the skimpiest of reasons as an explanation for human behavior or phenomena in nature.

When I use the word “evolution,” I use it in its fullest sense, as in this definition:

Organic evolution is the theory that the first living organism developed from lifeless matter. Then, as it reproduced, it is said, it changed into different kinds of living things, ultimately producing all forms of plant and animal life that have ever existed on this earth. All of this is said to have been accomplished without the supernatural intervention of a Creator. Some persons endeavor to blend belief in God with evolution, saying that God created by means of evolution, that he brought into existence the first primitive life forms and that then higher life forms, including man, were produced by means of evolution.

(Source: Reasoning From the Scriptures. Brooklyn, NY: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, 1985).

Recent examples of the Evolutionist ideology can be seen in the otherwise-excellent books The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan and Bright-Sided, by Barbara Ehrenreich. Both authors fall back on evolutionary psychology and sociobiology and the requisite just-so stories as explanatory tools for phenomena in nature and human psychology.

A post on BoingBoing from Andrea James on 11 January 2010 makes some great points about knee-jerk Evolutionism — see “What’s wrong with evolutionary psychology?” James provides this excellent list of “often-believed tenets of evolutionary psychology”:

Computational mind (the brain is more like a computer than a biological organ)

Determinism (biology is destiny)

Fatalism (free will/choice is an illusion)

Consciousness (subjective awareness deludes us into thinking we have free will)

Reductionism or essentialism (race and gender are concrete, not socially constructed, can be reduced to their genetic essence, and are quantifiable)

Intelligence is definable and measurable

Sexual selection should focus on benefits for the individual organism

The “function” or “purpose” of life is to make more life

The __ gene: The gay gene, the god gene, etc.

James also quotes a hilarious (but not untypical) example from one paper that maintains that “women’s brains developed to prefer pink because their brains specialized with trichromacy for gathering fruits”:

… these underpin the female preference for objects ‘redder’ than the background. As a gatherer, the female would also need to be more aware of color information than the hunter. This requirement would emerge as greater certainty and more stability in female color preference, which we find. An alternative explanation for the evolution of trichromacy is the need to discriminate subtle changes in skin color due to emotional states and social-sexual signals; again, females may have honed these adaptations for their roles as care-givers and ’empathizers.’

Another particular silly example of sociobiology attempts to explain why middle-aged men embarrass their kids by dancing awkwardly at weddings (see “‘Dad dancing’ may be the result of evolution, scientists claim,” Matthew Moore, Telegraph):

The cringeworthy “dad dancing” witnessed at wedding receptions every weekend may be an unconscious way in which ageing males repel the attention of young women, leaving the field clear for men at their sexual peak.

“The message their dancing sends out is ‘stay away, I’m not fertile’,” said Dr Peter Lovatt, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire who has compared the dancing styles and confidence levels of nearly 14,000 people.

I expect to update and expand this entry from time to time, as the silliness in this area of fringe science is never-ending.

ARK — 10 December 2009