The Seven Sins of Evolutionary Psychology - Konrad Lorenz Institute

Jaak Panksepp and Jules B. Pankseppnumber of details remain to be empirically resolved.However, the evidence that these systems are decisivefor the sociobiological competence of animals israther overwhelming. May we simply recall a blatantearly example—a description of cats that had receivedcomplete lesions of the periaqueductal graymatter of the midbrain: “If the lesion is extensive,the cats lie inert, silent and flaccid as a wet rag. Theynever again show any interest in food, but must benourished by stomach tube. They have no spontaneousactivity. They will sometimes swallow if milk isallowed to run down in the back of the throat. Irritationwhich would cause immediate outcry from anormal cat provokes only feeble movements of thehead or limbs.” However, after a few days of recovery,an animal “begins to right itself, first the head andthen the entire body. Body reactions are elicited normally.It may even walk slowly about on occasion ifstimulated, but has no spontaneous activity, attendsto nothing in its environment and never feeds itself”(BAILY/DAVIS 1943, p306). Nothing comparable canbe obtained with even extensive damage to the neocortex.The intrinsic ‘vitality’ of the subcortical terrain,including its importance for the direct generation ofa large variety of affective states, should not be underestimatedif we truly want to understand basicpsychological processes. The capacity of the cortexto ‘learn’ new strategies based upon the dictates ofthe primary-process emotional and motivationalmechanisms of subcortial areas is also truly remarkable.However, any claim that an abundance of Swisspocket-knife type, intrinsic, inclusive fitness types ofcognitive strategies have evolved within the circuitryof the neocortex during the last few millionyears of human brain/mind evolution remains geneticallyimprobable and certainly unsubstantiated.We welcome anyone providing evidence for suchpossibilities, but in their absences, we need not beconvinced of an intrinsically modular organizationsimply through the recitation of well-establishedneuropsychological specializations that are thestock in trade of neurologists working on the maturehuman brain. We think all neuroscientists acceptthat the mature human brain has abundant specializations,as does, to a much lesser extent, the newborninfant, but we may ultimately find that manyof these ‘genetically provided tools’ are, in fact, developmentallydependent on the specializationsthat exist subcortically in infants. Of course, all intrinsicfaculties of the mind/brain get massively refinedby the experiences of each and every child. Theplasticity clearly forces us to consider that the natureof our socio–cultural environments that we constructfor our children are more important than speculationsabout that stratetgies that EEAs may haveprogrammed into those neuronal spaces (PANKSEPP2001a). Thus, an evolutionary psychological analysishas yet to add anything to the well-establishedneuropsychological evidence and it now seems, alltoo often, to be diminishing our appreciation of thevast plasticity of human potential.Ian Pitchford:A Challenge From an InsiderAlthough we acknowledged the probable existenceof a variety of specialized functions in the neocortex(even though, once again, the term ‘module’ doesnot help us think about them in any scientificallyuseful way), we did strongly argue for the importanceof several subcortical systems that mediateemotions and motivations, and allow the cortex tofunction properly. To the extent that GARDNER seeshope in the neuroevolutionary psychobiology programof affective neuroscience, PITCHFORD seems todismiss it as a misguided enterprise. However, hisremarks were restricted to a small subset of issuesthat we addressed. Moreover, being the guidinglight of an evolutionary psychology list server(nibbs-newsletter@yahoogroups.com associated withhttp://www.human-nature.com/darwin/index.html),PITCHFORD may have been tempted to give us astronger tongue-flogging than he otherwise mighthave (at least that is suggested by some personalcommunications: vide infra). Accordingly, we see hiscomments partly as a ‘tribally’ motivated attempt tocapitalize on select aspects of the present debate bysetting up unrealistic polarities while ignoringmany of our main arguments. In any event, he discussedonly one of our seven criticisms, namely the“search for adaptive modules where there is onlygeneral-purpose computational space”, using languageprocessing and the role of developmentalprograms as his main exemplars.For didactic purposes we constructed perhaps toostrong a dichotomy between subcortical and corticalfunctions (as already indicated in our response toMEISENBERG), but that is easy to do when one haspersonally studied how behaviorally robust and outwardlynormal certain animals are after being surgicallydeprived of their neocortical tissue soon afterbirth (PANKSEPP et al. 1994). Comparable damage tosubcortical areas yields a terminally debilitated animal(e.g., see BAILY/DAVIS 1943 description above).In no way is our position ‘dualistic’. The existence ofEvolution and Cognition ❘ 64 ❘ 2001, Vol. 7, No. 1