I think that Aquinas would, in a wonderful scholastic fashion, make subtle distinctions, in evolutionary psychology, that would go completely over the heads of the rest of us. But he would probably accept, in general, its claims, like he in general accepted Aristotle’s claims, and took the truth, as he saw it in Plato, Cicero, and the presocratics.(incidently, a presocratic, Anaximander, proposed the first evolutionary theory).

That depends. If we are saying that the “mind” is reducible to the physical, then it already fits within the scope of evolutionary psychology. However, if we’re simply saying that the brain developed by evolutionary processes and this has an affect on behavior and the cognitive functions then we already have a field of study that covers that—biological psychology. It would also fit within the major I took in college: behavioral science.

I venture to suggest that we would call it “evolutionary psychology”.

The problem is that once a term is adopted for a common usage, it is difficult to change its connotation. As I said earlier, evolutionary psychology is not merely a conjuction of the terms evolution and psychology. It is a distinct approach that is (mostly?) incompatible with non-reductionist theories of the mind.

It would be like theistic evolutionists deciding that their research program be called “intelligent design.” While the term may be loosely applicable, it would be difficult to change the current connotation.

Admit that there might be some things of value in EP; but say that it should be approached critically, with many reservations and a great deal of caution.

I agree with Barry. Whatever insights that are valuable are either trivial or have nothing to do with the actual research done in EP. Sure, they might stumble upon an insight or two. Most fields of study do. But EP is to “science” what critical theory is to literature. It’s mostly a bunch of nonsense cooked up by academics that has no real connection to reality.

Would you then dismiss all of physics ideas out of hand?

I have to agree with Barry that this is an apples and oranges comparison. Physics is a hard science that resists distortion by metaphysical prejudices. EP is not a science. Just because it has the word “evolution” in its name and claims to have ties to evolutionary biology does not make it a science any more than Freudianism was a science because it had ties to psychiatry.

I would say that these people had hijacked a field.

But EP wasn’t a field that was hijacked. Insights from the study of evolution have always been added to the fields of cognitive science, ethology, etoecology, etc. EP was a field that was created in the 1980s, mostly as a reaction to sociobiology. It’s not a broad-based generic field (like ethology) but a rather narrow and specific research program that is intended to guide other research programs (like cognitive science). In this way, it is much like the Intelligent Design movement.

EP is a soft science. Physics is a hard science. As a hard science physics is necessarily more rigorous and self-corrective. Therefore, the metaphysical prejudices of physicists, while they play a role in researchers’ work (how can they not), do not distort the entire enterprise. EP on the other hand is nothing but metaphysical prejudices being fobbed off as scientific conclusions.

So, to answer your question, yes, even if it were proven that all physicists were atheists, the very nature of the enterprise makes the conclusions of the researchers more epistemologically reliable.

Finally, as I hoped I explained above, metaphysical naturalism’s iron grip on EP is not my only objection to the field. I object to EP because its conclusions are trivial (e.g., your example: men are sexually attracted to women because they want to reproduce their DNA), untestable, and contradictory (as I pointed out).

The other day you posted, with approval, some material from a Catholic priest who said that Christians can believe in much of evolutionary theory, but should not uncritically accept all of it. I suggest the same attitude here: Admit that there might be some things of value in EP; but say that it should be approached critically, with many reservations and a great deal of caution.

Let me ask a simple question of you and Barry Arrington. Suppose that religious people stopped going into, say, physics. Suppose it thus came to pass that 100% of physicists were hard-core atheists. Suppose they arrogantly started “defining” their field to be based on atheist assumptions. Would you then dismiss all of physics ideas out of hand? Would you say that Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism, Schrodinger’s Equation, Einstein’s theory of gravity, etc. were now “atheist”. I wouldn’t. I would say that these people had hijacked a field. I would say that the discoveries of physics, such as those I mentioned, were true notwithstanding the foolish philosophical opinions that currently prevailed among physicists.

If evolution shaped our brains and minds to a large extent, then Christian thinkers ought to be involved in the study of this. If they are not, and have left the field to the atheists, then Christians (collectively) are partly to blame.

Granted. I have yet to come across a EP who is not a physicalist.

So if the incompatibility that you see arises from physicalism, what would your take be on Christian physicalists (found in books like “Whatever Happened to the Soul” edited by Brown, Murphy, and Malony, “In Search of the Soul: Four Views of the Mind-Body Problem” edited by Green and Palmer, and Malcolm Jeeves’ “From Cells to Souls-and Beyond”)?

As for the development of an EP that would be compatible with theism, I’d recommend looking up Christopher Grace at Biola U. He’s working on something like that.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/10/why_do_women_shop_and_men_hunt.php

There’s a difference between the idea having no validity at all, and the idea being overapplied and undertested (the “greedy reductionism” I alluded to before).

It’s always possible that I am not adequately representing the claims of EP. But I think in this particular case I am on sold ground. For example, consider page 16 of the reference you cited:

Like cognitive scientists, when evolutionary psychologists refer to the mind, they mean the set of information processing devices, embodied in neural tissue, that is responsible for all conscious and unconscious mental activity, that generates all behavior, and that regulates the body. [emphasis in original]

EPs, as I understand them, are purely physicalists. Here’s an example of what I mean: Imagine that after touching a glowing red spot on an electric stove and burning my hand, I form a belief that touching a stove will burn me. In the future, this belief causes me to pull back my hand when I get close to a hot stove.

What has happened is that a physical event in P (getting burned) causes an event in M (my mind feels pain). M produces an M event (a belief that anytime I touch a hot stove I will get burned) that causes P* (an automatic reaction in which I pull my hand back anytime I get close to a stove).

We can put this in diagram form as follows:

M—>M*
| |
^ v
P P*

The EP advocate will disagree with my claim since, in their view, mental events are the same as physical events in the brain.

Instead my behavior is caused by muscles that contract upon receiving neural impulses, and neural impulses are generated by input from other neurons or from sense organs.

Their position could be diagrammed as follows:

M M*

| |

P –> P*

My brain (P) produces my mind (M) but my reaction (P*) is not caused by a non-physical mental event (M*).

So when they are talking about the “mind” they are really talking about a specific type of physical event. That’s not at all what most people think about when they use the term.

You also say that an intimate connection between body and mind would fit within a theistic evolutionary approach, but not a secular evolutionary approach.

True, but I think there is a bit of semantic confusion surrounding the term. I think there is an assumption that “evolutionary psychology” is merely the conjunction of two fields of study. In reality, it is a distinct branch that is related to those two fields, but whose ideas are distinct and novel.

It’s similar to asking if we could develop a theory of Freudianism that did not rely on the id, ego, and superego. We could, but then it would not longer be Freudianism but something entirely different. That is the same with EP. Once you claim that mental states are not coequal with physical states, then you are no longer talking about EP even if you combine aspects of evolution and psychology.

So is your problem really with evolutionary psychology, or with atheism?

Currently, as far as I understand it, EP presupposes atheism. Since I reject the latter, I will naturally have problems with EP. I’m open to a theory of evolutionary psychology that could be compatible with theism. But right now I don’t think one has been developed.

Neuberg, Kenrick, & Schaller, “Evolutionary Social Psychology” (Handbook of Social Psychology, 5th edition):
“An evolutionary perspective rejects any simplistic ‘nature versus nurture’ approach to the causes of social behavior. Rather, it acknowledges, and seeks to unpack, , the fascinating and complex relationships among evolved mechanisms, developmental processes, learning, and culture.” (p. 762)

David Buss and colleagues, in an American Psychologist article published this year:
“The framework of evolutionary psychology dissolves dichotomies such as “nature versus nurture,” “innate versus learned,” and “biological versus cultural.” Instead it offers a truly interactionist framework: Environmental selection pressures shape evolved mechanisms at the phylogenetic level. Environmental input influences their development at the ontogenetic level. And the environment provides cues that activate psychological adaptations at the immediate proximal level.”

Toobey & Cosmides, “Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology” (Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology):
“it would be wrong to exclude the machinery of higher cognition from an evolutionary analysis. The evolved architecture of the mind includes specialized mechanisms that permit offline, decoupled cognition, in which metarepresentations, imagery, and a scope syntax interact with the outputs of domain specific mechanisms to allow the counterfactual and suppositional thinking. Decoupled cognition may have evolved to help calibrate or recalibrate mechanisms through synthesized experience, support planning, infer other people’s mental contents, or imagine solutions to social, tool use, or other ancestral problems. But it seems likely that, whether as by-products or not, decoupled cognition also permits the kind of thinking that underlies scientific discovery, religious ideas, and other uniquely human preoccupations.”

I’m no fan of evolutionary psychology, but are you sure you’re not rejecting a straw man?

You also say that an intimate connection between body and mind would fit within a theistic evolutionary approach, but not a secular evolutionary approach. So is your problem really with evolutionary psychology, or with atheism?