I quibble with one small part of this article: [Evolutionary psychology] has had the field to itself, especially in the media, for almost two decades. In large

I quibble with one small part of this article: [Evolutionary psychology] has had the field to itself, especially in the media, for almost two decades. In large part that was because early critics, led by the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, attacked it with arguments that went over the heads of everyone but about 19 experts in evolutionary theory. Philip Kitcher's Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature (MIT Press, 1987) is a thorough devastating takedown of sociobiology, especially what Kitcher calls "pop sociobiology". Except for bits of the first and last chapters, it is entirely based on empirical arguments rather than "OMG the political implications of this are awful"; and you don't need a biology degree to understand it. All the arguments I have seen for the controversial claims in popularized evolutionary psychology (e.g., "this behavior exists and therefore it must be adaptive") were answered by Kitcher twenty years ago. (I don't follow the field, so if there are people doing good work in evo-psych that is too boring for the mainstream press, well, good for them.) (Kitcher also wrote Abusing Science, a takedown of "creation science", back when it was called "creation science" rather than "intelligent design".)