The Seven Sins of Evolutionary Psychology - Konrad Lorenz Institute

Jaak Panksepp and Jules B. Panksepptivational survival concerns (PANKSEPP 1988, 1989).We anticipate that those ‘spheres of influence’ mayprocess information in unique ways. We also believethat the frontal lobes have some very general abilitiesthat give it such a unique role in elaboratingvarious executive processes (GALLESE/GOLDMAN1998; BARKLEY 2001). Indeed, many such executiveprocesses probably participate in so many differentcognitive functions that the concept of modularitymerely becomes a hinderance in trying to work outhow some of the basic cortical processes that helpconstruct so many sophisticated cognitive abilitiesvia the experiences of individuals.Thus, we are not adverse to studying such higherfaculties, but we suggest that evolutionary viewshave not and are not likely to have any impact onhow we empirically study these functions, althoughthey can help loosen up the types of intellectual constipationthat have characterized past variants ofwhat might be appropriately called ‘dustbowl cognitivism’(see BARKLEY 2001 for an example of this laxativeexperience). In any event, our position was thatultimately, most of the sophistication of the corticalfunctions is brought to life experientially. An understandingof the neuro-maturational processes thatyield well-honed cortical processes will be much,much more, dependent on general brain mechanismsthat govern neuronal plasticity than any typeof resolved information that is contained in thegenes. That was our main point, and we encounterednothing in ATRAN’s well-crafted defense that dissuadesus from this position.We see our disagreement amounting to littlemore than a matter of emphasis. ATRAN wishes toretain the concept of modularity and sees some typeof implicit advantage in that evolutionary view, althoughhe does not suggest how it might be cashedout empirically. We see both of those issues to besuperfluous for the pursuit of his faculty-psychologyprogram. We regret that he fails to see the potentialpower of subcortical, socio–emotional systems ingoverning many of the processes in which he is interested.Thus, to take his first example of a structuralprinciple, ‘the whole–object constraint’, theunderstanding of which modularity has presumablyfacilitated, we point out that the visual systemis certainly designed during early development toperceive the objects of the world (this is also evidentin other animals). In our estimation, young childrenattach labels to such objects using social, ‘point andname’ games with caretakers. To underestimate basicsocial/motivational/emotional processes in suchlinguistic acquisitions is, we think, shortsighted.Considering that ATRAN dealt with only one smallsegment of our critique, we were surprised that heclaimed that “there is no empirical evidence whateverto indicate” that our “central thesis is true, andmuch to suggest that it is false”. If the ‘seven solutions’we shared are of relevance for human behavior(admittedly most remain to be tested in humans),then a cognitive psychology that continues to neglectsuch issues must surely be deemed nothingshort of myopic. We think that the failure of mostcommentators to deal with the animal data we providedsimply highlights that a great deal of the evolutionaryprocesses that control our behavior appearto be of little interest to evolutionary and cognitivepsychologists. We suspect that many of those processesare absolutely essential for the higher processesin which cognitive scientists are so interestedand we will only note the disastrous effects that damageto those subcortical systems can have on humanmental life (DAMASIO 1999; SCHIFF/PLUM 1999).As we stated in the target article, while socializationis certainly not a direct evolutionary explanationof human language (as ATRAN also emphasizes),it probably was a selective force for the emergence ofcommunicative intent. We assume that all will agreethat relatively little human language would emergewithout socialization. We can also agree, that inmost people when they have learned language, agreat deal of the critical circuitry is concentrated inWERNICKE’s and BROCA’s areas of the left hemisphere,as well as the circuits of the anterior cingulate. Moreover,if all those tissues are destroyed, the child willstill learn language by using, presumably, the correspondingsystems of the right hemisphere (BATRO2000 VARGHA-KHADEM et al. 1997). However, the plotnow thickens. Children born deaf also aspire to communicateand they do quite successfully, partly byusing somewhat different parts of the brain wheresomatosensory skills are usually elaborated (NEVILLEet al. 1998; PASQUAL-LEONE/TORRES 1993). And wheredo multiply impaired individuals like Hellen KELLERelaborate their urge to communicate?We, along with others (LIEBERMAN 2000), believethat so much of language is linked to subcortical andcortico–limbic social urges/pragmatics, that it may bethat language emerged from these ingrained systemsinteracting with our massively sophisticated RAMtypespace of the neocortex. The reason the left hemispherehas such primacy in most people is becausethe left side of the brain is more talented at extrovertedsocial activities (for reasons we will not entertainhere), and because WERNICKE’s area is nestled betweenall of the major perceptual surfaces of the brainEvolution and Cognition ❘ 70 ❘ 2001, Vol. 7, No. 1