Scholars who believe nurture trumps nature also tend to doubt the scientific method

By Christian Jarrett How far has evolutionary thinking permeated through academia? A survey of more than 600 scholars from 22 disciplines, ranging from psychology and economics through to gender studies, sociology and the humanities, finds that there remain two distinct cultures in the academe, at least regarding views on the principal causes of human behaviour and human culture. One group, made up of psychologists, economists, philosophers and political scientists believes more strongly in the genetic influences on behaviour, beliefs and culture. The other group, consisting sociologists, non-evolutionary anthropologists, women’s and gender studies scholars and all humanities scholars (except philosophy), believes in the primacy of environmental influences. What’s more, those scholars favouring environmental accounts also tend to be sceptical of the scientific method. The findings are published open-access in the newly launched journal Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture. Joseph Carroll at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and his colleagues, including Mathias Clasen at Aarhus University, identified influential scholars in different disciplines based on their authorship of papers in their fields’ leading journals. Each participant rated their agreement with 24 statements pertaining to the nature/nurture debate and gene-environment interactions. The camp favouring genetic explanations tended to agree more strongly with statements like “H...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: evolutionary psych Source Type: blogs