On the verifiability of evolutionary psychological theories: An analysis of the psychology of scientific persuasion

Evolutionary psychological theories have engendered much skepticism in the mod-ern scientific climate. Why? We argue that, although sometimes couched in the lan-guage of unfalsifiability, the skepticism results primarily from the perception that evolutionary theories are less verifiable than traditional psychological theories. It is more difficult to be convinced of the veracity of an evolutionary psychological theory because an additional layer of inference must be logically traversed: One not only has to be persuaded that a particular model of contemporary psychologi-cal processes uniquely predicts observed phenomena, one must also be persuaded that a model of deeply historical processes uniquely predicts the model of psycho-logical processes. This analysis of the psychology of scientific persuasion yields a number of specific suggestions for the development, testing, and discussion of evo-lutionary psychological theories. New theoretical perspectives in science are not born easily. The broad notions and odd angles of novel ideas move haltingly through cognitive passageways tha