9 Evolutionary developmental psychology, an emerging subdiscipline of evolutionary approaches to 10 human behavior and cognition, focuses on the adaptive nature of psychological mechanisms built into 11 the brains of juveniles, some of which may serve immediate demands at different stages of 12 development, and some of which serve preparatory roles for maturity. The current article reviews some...

In a recent series of articles, Hislope (1998, 2000) and Harvey (2000a, 2000b) have raised questions about the usefulness of “evolutionary theory” especially for any purpose other than identifying “distal” causes of ethnic phenomena. This article responds to those views and argues that evolutionary psychology shows great promise in contributing to the explanation of contemporary ethnic identiti...

Lloyd and Feldman’s (this issue) continuing commentary on our recent target article and rejoinder (Ellis & Ketelaar, 2000; Ketelaar & Ellis, 2000) focuses on two overarching issues. First, Lloyd and Feldman claim that our description of the core metatheoretical assumptions of modern evolutionary theory overemphasizes the role of inclusive fitness (i.e., the so-called selfish gene approach) at t...

The history of scientific progress is marked by a process of conceptual integration: Different fields of inquiry become intertwined and interconsistent as they grow. Evolutionary psychology is a continuation of this process and, like previous integrations, has generated substantial resistance from different social and political circles. Looking into the future, we can outline the nature of the ...

Ketelaar and Ellis have provided a remarkably clear and succinct statement of Lakatosian philosophy of science and have also argued compellingly that the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution fills the Lakatosian criteria of progressivity. We find ourselves in agreement with much of what Ketelaar and Ellis say about Lakatosian philosophy of science, but have some questions about (1) the place of ev...