VoiceOfRa comments on LINK: Most of EvoPsych is pseudoscience - Less Wrong
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This is a ridiculous standard. The author presumably has no problem with using evolution to describe non-psycological traits. No one, say, demends we find the "trunk gene" before talking about why elephants evolved trunks.
It's called Ockham's razor. If a behavior has beneficial (to the individual) effect X, it having evolved for that purpose is a more parsimonious explanation than to having evolved for reason Y that just happens to correlate with X.
EvoPsychs are perfectly willing to explain traits using more recent enviroments when the evidence warrants it. Of course, Richard Carrier probably considers those parts "abuse of EvoPsych for purposes of racism". After all if a trait evolved after the human populations diverged, it probably didn't evolve the same way in all populations.
Amazing how the Creationists' "argument from complexity" suddenly becomes respectable when applied to psycological traits specifically.
Are there academic papers that discuss why elephants evolved trunks?