Abstract
The New Thinking contained in this volume rejects an Evolutionary Psychology that is committed to innate domain-specific psychological mechanisms: gene-based adaptations that are unlearnt, developmentally fixed and culturally universal. But the New Thinking does not simply deny the importance of innate psychological traits. The problem runs deeper: the concept of innateness is not suited to distinguishing between the New Thinking and Evolutionary Psychology. That points to a more serious problem with the concept of innateness as it is applied to human psychological phenotypes. This paper argues that the features of recent human evolution highlighted by the New Thinking imply that the concept of inherited representation, set out here, is a better tool for theorizing about human cognitive evolution.
Highlights
The New Thinking contained in this volume rejects an Evolutionary Psychology that is committed to innate domain-specific psychological mechanisms: gene-based adaptations that are unlearnt, developmentally fixed and culturally universal
1 INTRODUCTION (a) New Thinking versus Evolutionary Psychology It is standardly assumed that innate psychological mechanisms should be the central focus of an evolutionary account of human cognition
If the New Thinking is on the right track, innateness is not a useful concept for theorizing about recent human cognition
Summary
The New Thinking contained in this volume rejects an Evolutionary Psychology that is committed to innate domain-specific psychological mechanisms: gene-based adaptations that are unlearnt, developmentally fixed and culturally universal. The New Thinking emphasizes the complementary roles of gene-based and of culturally-based selection processes of various kinds for generating the adaptively relevant information on which human psychological capacities are based; the importance of interactions with the physical and social environment, and of learning, in developing those capacities.
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