The post was inspired by an article in the Wall Street Journal which is an example of the reasons you, dear reader, would be justified in claiming evolutionary psychology is bunch of bullhooey.
Evolutionary psychology takes as its premise that the behavior of humans today can often be best understood in light of how that behavior probably helped our hunter-gatherer ancestors survive and get their genes into the next generation. So while it doesn't make much evolutionary sense why a toddler would scream for his mommy at daycare today (he's unlikely to get harmed and his mom is in an office building clear across town), if that same toddler was left in the bush without his pre-historic mom eons ago those screams would stand a good chance of keeping him around to see the next day.
The screaming toddler is an example of "well, duh" evolutionary insight. Matt Ridley (who generally is an exceptional thinker) gives a good "excuse me, huh?" evolutionary take in his WSJ opinion piece.
Ridley starts his article sensibly enough, explaining that while it may be unfashionable to say so evolutionary theory can account for many of the differences between men and women. But rather than serve up some "no, duh" examples - eg, women are more nurturing because they were likely the prime parenters, men are more aggressive because they had to defend their women, etc - Ridley offers instead the golf course and to the mall to clarify how evolution shaped our behavior.
Women are thought to have been the "gatherers" and men the "hunters" in the pre-historic division of labor, says Ridley. This is not a much disputed point. But for Ridley those past job roles explain why today men love golf and women love shopping.
"Without knowing it, golf-course designers are setting up a sort of idealized abstraction of the hunting ground, while shoe retailers are setting up a sort of ersatz echo of the gathering field," writes Ridley.
It's no wonder evolutionary psychology inspires eye rolls.
I was trying to think why Ridley's golf-hunter and mall-gatherer is so maddeningly inane. He is, after-all, only noting a valid cliche about men and women. Although some women love golf, let's face it guys more often go gaga over the sport. And show me a straight man who will moon over Jimmy Choos for hours on end - I have a bridge to sell you.
But Ridley's golf-course-as-hunting-ground and macy's-as-foraging-forest theory strike two blows against logic and common sense.
First, as I claimed in my earlier post, one of the most persuasive arguments for evolutionary psychology is the observation that so many of behaviors are universal, found in every village and city world-wide. If a behavior - say, crying for mommy - is so prevalent, odds are it comes from something in our genetic makeup (which varies little across continents) rather than culture (which varies little). Golf, it is safe to say, is not one of these behaviors. (One might counter-argue that the only reason golf isn't played across the globe is that it's price-prohibitive. That might be so, but it still leaves the golf-as-universal claim as conjecture.) What Ridley could have used as a strong example is "sports" in general. Without being an anthropologist I'm going to go out on a limb and say men in all cultures play some kind of team sport. Trying to figure out what ancient instinct sports satisfy is a worthwhile pursuit; I'll even go out on a limb and say it has something to do with, yes, the hunt as well as the occasional need to attack the neighboring tribe.
That leads to the second rule of sensible evolutionizing; when looking at a universal behavior, always be sure to ask "what are the other possible evolutionary explanations?" Working off the cuff here, I can come up with a few other scenarios to explain golf and shoe shopping.
Golf first: take a little competition (males fighting for status, which is really fighting for fertile chicks), add an exclusive and expensive activity (more social status), a green setting (a reassuring sign that food is available) and, okay, a little thrill of hitting a target far in the distance (hunting) - and you get golf.
As for shoe shopping, when Ridley tips his hat to "foraging", he's putting too much emphasis on the "shopping" and not enough on the "shoe." Replace shoe with "grocery" and he'll find women much less happy to browse for hours (and, of course, grocery shopping is more akin to our ancestral activities). Shoe shopping, as any girl will attest, is not as much about exploring as it is about primping and imagining how deliciously and fabulously delectable you are to the object of your desire (true today as it was millenia ago). If you bring along your girlfriends, all the better - now you get to bond and gossip, two other behaviors that likely served to improve life for African Eves.
Don't be mistaken; I'm not trying to replace Ridley's evolutionary claptrap with my own claptrap. I'm just trying to point out that other (and, perhaps, more plausible) evolutionary explanations for golfing and shoe shopping are available than the ones he has to offer. Which explanations are correct is something we might never know. But that doesn't mean all evolutionary theorists are just making stuff up: the smart ones figure things out the old fashioned way - coming up with a theory, figuring out a test that could disprove the theory, and if/when that test fails to prove their hypothesis, then knowing they are one step closer to better understanding. There are plenty of examples; let's hope Mr. Ridley offers them next time around.
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