Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
The disagreement between philosophers about the scientific worth of the evolutionary behavioral sciences (evolutionary psychology, human behavioral ecology, etc.) is in part due to the fact that critics and advocates of these sciences characterize them very differently. In this article, by analyzing quantitatively the citations made in the articles published in Evolution & Human Behavior between January 2000 and December 2002, we provide some evidence that undermines the characterization of the evolutionary behavioral sciences put forward by their critics. 1 Four Claims about the Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences 1.1 The disparaging characterization 1.2 Evolutionary behavioral scientists’ acquaintance with the biological sciences and with evolutionary biology 1.3 Evolutionary behavioral scientists and the evolutionary biology of the 1960s and 1970s 1.4 Evolutionary behavioral scientists and sociobiology 1.5 The homogeneity of the evolutionary behavioral sciences 2 Quantitative Citation Analysis 2.1 The usual philosophical method 2.2 Quantitative citation analysis 2.3 Operationalizing the controversy 2.4 A plea for quantitative analyses 3 Methods and Preliminary Analyses 3.1 Methods 3.2 Analysis by publication date 3.3 Analysis by authors’ disciplinary affiliation 4 Hypothesis 1: Are Evolutionary Behavioral Scientists Sufficiently Influenced by Biology in General and by Evolutionary Biology in Particular? 5 Hypothesis 2: Are Evolutionary Behavioral Scientists Unduly Influenced by the Evolutionary Biology of the 1970s? 6 Hypothesis 3: What is the Relation between Sociobiology and the Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences? 7 Hypothesis 4: Do the Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences Divide into Competing Paradigms? 8 An Evidence-based Characterization of the Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Machery et al. (2011) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 10 related papers. Consider them for comparative context: