Talk:Evolutionary psychology

40px This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 August 2018 and 5 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Atomic1City*Blonde, ThePurpleButton.

{{small|Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:00, 16 January 2022 (UTC)}}

This topic is misleading.

The "ethics" discussion revolves around political positions and concerns belonging to pure philosophy and to human sciences but not to natural sciences.

The discussion on ethics uses a fallacy fallacy to attack EP, and naturally since it is fallacious also the whole matter falls into infinite regression.

Editors are pushing views under the allegation a reliable source has not been presented to necessary edits, when it was, however initially mischaracterized.

Prescriptive, not descriptive, ethical positions do not concern natural sciences. EP doesn't make or promote prescriptive ethics or values.

If third parties make prescriptive claims utilizing EP the third parties themselves should be addressed, an not EP on malicious, unrelated and incompatible philosophical grounds. ApoliticalFactChecker (talk) 21:44, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moralistic_fallacy

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope ApoliticalFactChecker (talk) 22:16, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

:Instead of continually making vague complaints like this, both here and at Talk:Criticism of evolutionary psychology, you need to get specific. Either add reliably sourced material - and no unsourced commentary - or else make a case that existing material misrepresents relevant sources or uses unreliable sources. I am by no means anti-evolutionary psychology; but you need to stick to what sources say. Editors' personal opinions are not relevant. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:51, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

{{dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment | course = Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Alabama_at_Birmingham/Psychology_Capstone_(Summer_2022) | assignments = Whitb05 | start_date = 2022-05-09 | end_date = 2022-08-06 }}

— Assignment last updated by Joyb3 (talk) 21:46, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

{{dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment | course = Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Alabama_at_Birmingham/Psychology_Capstone_(Fall_2024) | assignments = Carlysoenksen | reviewers = Bells7, Evynnh76, Kayedwards0, Kpatel0820 | start_date = 2024-08-26 | end_date = 2024-12-06 }}

— Assignment last updated by Rahneli (talk) 23:41, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

In the following paragraph taken from the Scope>Principles section of this article:

"Evolutionary psychology adopts an understanding of the mind that is based on the computational theory of mind. It describes mental processes as computational operations, so that, for example, a fear response is described as arising from a neurological computation that inputs the perceptional data, e.g. a visual image of a spider, and outputs the appropriate reaction, e.g. fear of possibly dangerous animals. Under this view, any domain-general learning is impossible because of the combinatorial explosion."

Seems to make a number of what seem clearly overstated or dubious claims about Evolutionary Psychology:

1) That EP believes all behavior is based in a computational theory of mind.

2) That computational procedures are deterministic

3) That domain-general learning is incompatible with EP

My (lay-informed) understanding of EP is that while some researchers with extreme views might believe some of this, it is by no means a widespread view in the field. In particular, the idea that domain-general learning is incompatible with EP seems preposterous. The fact that these statements are all uncited with evidence makes me want to strike the entire set of sentences from the article. Thoughts? Advice? Stevemidgley (talk) 19:15, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant to say "administrators". I don't believe you have moderators here. 1Rastabrain (talk) 23:11, 14 February 2025 (UTC)