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Comment by dooglius | Hacker News Reader

A "just so" story like this is certainly unfounded, I think, but I wouldn't call it unfalsifiable. You could search for supporting evidence by investigating, for instance,

- Do we see this effect in species other than humans?

- Is this effect more pronounced in individuals descending from ancestors who were more prone to hunting?

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>Do we see this effect in species other than humans?

You can always find a difference between humans an the other species that explains the absence in the latter.

>Is this effect more pronounced in individuals descending from ancestors who were more prone to hunting?

Same.

Evolutionary psychology is ... not popular with cogsci depts...

Good evolutionary hypotheses generate testable predictions about the trait being examined. This can lead to other predicted (testable) effects, and so on, building evidence (or lack thereof) for an idea. Just because we can't draw definitive conclusions doesn't mean there is not strong evidence for many evolutionary theories.

> Evolutionary psychology is ... not popular with cogsci depts...

That's a shame. It seems there is a lot to be gained from a comprehensive approach to understanding.

You may have heard the phrase “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (Dobzhansky). Well, this is true for the human brain and psychology, too. We can't correctly address major behavioral issues without a deeper understanding of the evolved functions of our brain.

>Good evolutionary hypotheses generate testable predictions about the trait being examined.

To clarify: yes, absolutely!

The problem (and the reason for it's unpopularity), is that the EP community, in general, produces many bad hypotheses.

But authorities closed down my human breeding lab.

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