The Seven Sins of Evolutionary Psychology - Konrad Lorenz Institute

Russell Gardner, Jr.these subcortical systems to human consciousnessand other facets of thought (PANKSEPP 2000). I feelthe PANKSEPP approach fosters integration betweenthe behavioral–mental–experiential (BME) and theorgan–cellular–molecular (OCM) levels of analysis.His work exemplifies scientific “docking” betweenthe levels.By contrast, the EP thinkers fundamentally restricttheir thinking to the BME level. They use theword biology to suggest otherwise, but many ofthese thinkers refer little if at all to actual brain research.Rather, they focus primarily on parametersof behavior that they imagine solidified in a PleistoceneEra of Evolutionary Adaptedness resultingfrom genome changes that led to humans becomingdistinct from other animals, with other functionsheld in common such as eating and defense takenfor granted and less interesting. Philip LIEBERMAN(2000), who has benefited from Paul MACLEAN’s formulations(MACLEAN 1990), argued in another extraordinaryrecent book that even the human specialty,verbal language, stems in large part fromsubcortical mechanisms, rather than reflecting a bureaucracyimplicitly limited to the cerebral cortex aspopularized, by EP linguist Steven PINKER (1994), forinstance. LIEBERMAN notes EP modular theorists usecore metaphors from World War II electronics thatinfer direct sequential connections from module tomodule. But feed-forward and feedback connectionsfound in all cortical areas directly counter the presupposedsequential connections.Not only LIEBERMAN, but PANKSEPP too benefitedfrom MACLEAN’s emphasis on evolutionary originsof present day brains that focused on complex behaviorsinvolving other conspecifics. PANKSEPPworked directly with John Paul SCOTT who died in2000 and to whom the PANKSEPPs dedicate theirseven sins–paper. SCOTT pioneered the genetics ofbehavior, focusing in landmark studies on behavioraldifferences in dog breeds (SCOTT/FULLER 1965).Significantly SCOTT (1989) wrote on the evolution ofhuman social systems.Conceptually linking the BME and the OCE levelsof analysis has commanded great interest but alsoincurred great problems over the two and a half millenniasince the school of HIPPOCRATES defined thebrain as the body’s control center. Typically, as withthe EP workers focusing only on the BME level, eitherone or the other level has been featured in isolation,with the other revealed as trivial with onlyminimum information needed. For a recent exampleof a contrasting focus restricted to the OCM level,KANDEL and SQUIRE (2000) published an article withan engaging title that included, “breaking down scientificbarriers to the study of the brain and mind”.But in fact they considered only cognition and memoryon the upper level and suggested that new advancesin the dramatic breakthroughs in OCM researchwill illumine the BME level. Their toneshowed little appreciation for the need of a two-waystreet —that conceptualizations at the BME level arerequired for docking between the two levels. Yet suchare required for full meaning to such disciplines aspsychiatry and related clinical human care-givingdisciplines. Emergent properties at the more complexlevel—such as story-production—determinesmuch behavior not predictable from features of theless complex level. Beyond its cognitive and memoryaspects alone, conspecific communication representsa brain-driven activity that requires analysis.Contrasting to the KANDEL-SQUIRE approach, linguistPIATTELLI-PALMARINI (2000) opined recently in Naturethat “The brain scientists will have to know exactlywhat they are expected to find the neural basesof”.The PANKSEPPs’ “emotional” approach (pun intended)curiously returns us to what the HIPPOCRATICSchool suggested when as the brain emerged as themajor controlling center of the body during the 5 thcentury B.C.: “Men ought to know that from nothingelse but the brain comes the joys, delights, laughterand sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, andlamentations. And by this, in an especial manner, weacquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hearand know what are foul and what are fair, what arebad and what are good, what are sweet and what areunsavory” (FINGER 2000). Note in this HIPPOCRATICthinking, wisdom and knowledge take second placeto affectively charged communications and feelings.I intended the above pun because I suspect that oneof the barriers to considering fully the integrationbetween the BME and OCM levels stems from strongfeelings on the part of senior neuroscientists thatemotions and other communicational topics interferewith proper science, extending to the idea thatthose who pay attention to them are necessarily unreliable,involved with fluff somehow, or willing totolerate dubious information. MACLEAN, SCOTT andJaak PANKSEPP represent a handful of pioneers whojuxtapose emotions and other conspecific communicationsas meaningful topics that integrate the twolevels. But KANDEL and SQUIRE in their listing of 20 thcentury notables omit neuroscientists MACLEAN andPANKSEPP, though both made highly significant contributions,at least if BME–OCM integrative issueswere valued.Evolution and Cognition ❘ 26 ❘ 2001, Vol. 7, No. 1