Do evolutionary models adequately account for the reality of human altruism, moral conviction, and cooperation? Does intelligent design offer a better explanation? On a new episode of ID the Future, I begin discussing these questions and more with geologist and attorney Casey Luskin. My recent article exploring scientific worldview in the Marvel universe generated some lively back-and-forth in the comments section, particularly about whether evolutionary processes could account for humans looking out for other humans. Luskin tackles the question head-on, putting it in the larger context of evolutionary psychology’s penchant for explaining every possible human behavior through the lens of a Darwinian past.
If you want creative storytelling, look no further than evolutionary psychology, a sub-discipline of psychology that attempts to reduce complex human behaviors — including morality, religion, and love — to Darwinian adaptive strategies shaped by natural selection to increase reproductive fitness. “It’s a very deceptively simple game to play,” says Luskin. “All you have to do in evolutionary psychology is just come up with some speculative explanation for how some behavior provided an evolutionary advantage in some given situation in the past.” But if evolutionary psychology attempts to explain every behavior, including each behavior’s opposite, can it really explain anything? Does it have any predictive power at all? Luskin answers those questions before discussing two more critiques of evolutionary theory, including the assumptions it makes and the logical fallacies it commits.
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Dig Deeper
- For more, read Casey Luskin’s chapter on this topic in the volume Science and Faith in Dialogue.
- Casey also covers the topic in Salvo Magazine: “When It Comes to Human Behavior, Darwinian Hindsight is Always 20/20.”
- See also Denyse O’Leary’s chapter on evolutionary psychology in The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith.