Why have evolutionary psychologists been criticized for emphasizing adaptationism?
Some people usually use evolutionary psychology and sociobiology in place of each other very often, whereas some other people do not agree with this aspect.
As per Wilson, evolutionary psychology and human sociobiology are identical. David buss (evolutionary psychologist) explains that as per sociobiologists, the main objective of human beings is to provide their genes to their next generation.
Evolutionary psychology is very popular in today’s contemporary psychology, but it also comes with its own criticism. Evolutionary psychology is criticized for its acceptingness towards adaptationism. Adaptationists think that ancestors of some species could survive, if there would have been an existence of behavioral tendency or bodily structure.
Three faults were identified by Gould and Lewontin, regarding adaptationism, which are as follows:
1. It is not necessary that the train that was adaptive in the past environments would be adaptive in the present environment.
2. A trait that developed for unique purpose in the past may not show the same result for future, rather it may function in completely different way.
3. Evolutionary changes are caused by all the factors except adaptation.
The faults seen were further illustrated with examples, like feather of birds, which were originally for maintaining body temperature, but later turned out to be helpful in flying too.