Evolutionary Psychology

It has been 27 years since the inception of the field of evolutionary psychology marked by the publication of Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby’s The Adapted Mind. Although some might argue that the foundations of evolutionary psychology go much deeper with the publication of EO Wilson’s Sociobiology: The New Synthesis in 1975 (and yet others like Steven Pinker will go much, much deeper to George Williams’ Adaptation and Natural Selection in 1966), really the theoretical foundations of evolutionary psychology in its modern incarnation were laid out in The Adapted Mind. Since then, evolutionary psychology (or EP, for short) has been through its own series of trials and tribulations as it has fought to advance itself as a legitimate field of inquiry.

Comments on the Bonobo

Over the weekend, a number of biological anthropologists took a critical lens to some of my articles and blogposts. One of them found a pretty important mistake, but I figure this might be a good time to talk about some thoughts I’ve had regarding bonobos and human evolution.