Yabba-Dabba-Doo! A Response to Unfair Accusations
2004; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 57; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1177/0018726704045840
ISSN1741-282X
Autores Tópico(s)Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
ResumoThere may be reasons to critique evolutionary psychology (EP) and particularly its application to the study of organizations. Those reasons might arguably include: (i) it hasn’t lived up to the enthusiasm of its proponents in producing concrete results; (ii) it smells of fadishness; (iii) it is so poorly defined that anything can be called EP; (iv) everything ‘true’ about it is trivial, everything non-trivial is probably not true. Although we would dispute such criticisms, a review of EP to date could carefully analyze the progress in EP and make such (arguable) claims. Furthermore, such a critique may even be useful at this point, if to do nothing less than to get us proponents of EP to clarify what has and hasn’t been gained by adopting the EP approach. But Graham Sewell’s article is not such a critique. Instead it is the same pack of misunderstandings and misrepresentations about EP and sociobiology that have been repeated (and refuted) for years. His article is no more a critique of EP than it would be a critique of J.S. Bach to complain that he over used the saxophone in his operas. Indeed, Sewell’s comments are (indirectly) a testimony to the strength of EP, since they may demonstrate that the only way to oppose EP is to misrepresent it. If Sewell is correct in his characterization of research in EP, then we are intellectual imperialists and absolutists with a nefarious political agenda who condone rape and infanticide. It is hard not to respond with fury and outrage at such allegations. But we will attempt to contain our anger and hope to provide a more measured response. We use the space alloted to us trying to persuade you that Sewell has grossly and massively mischaracterized EP, and that he (and other critics of EP) employ an extreme double standard with respect to method. We also discuss what we think underlies the antipathy some feel toward EP. But before we get to that, we would like
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