ilyavinarsky

In sum, evolutionary psychology suffers a methodological problem: it is at times surprisingly unrigorous. Too often, data are skimpy, alternative hypotheses are neglected, and the entire enterprise threatens to slip into undisciplined storytelling. [...] Concerns about rigor are surely the leading worry about evolutionary psychology among working biologists. Ask a molecular geneticist who's skeptical of Darwinian psychology to explain why. You won't hear that the slate is blank; you'll hear about "soft science." In the end, evolutionary psychology wants to have it both ways. It longs after the prestige of hard science but hopes to be held to a lower standard of rigor than, say, molecular biology.