Evolutionary psychology, a recently constituted but already broadly extended programme in the study of human behaviour, is notable for, among other things, the unusually pre-emptive character of its claims. According to its major proponents, ‘reverse engineering’, the method that defines and distinguishes evolutionary psychology, permits identification of the underlying, innate mental mechanisms that govern all human behaviour, from incest-avoidance and female-adolescent anorexia to past-tense formation and a taste for Victorian novels. In supplying these identifications, it is said, evolutionary psychologists provide genuinely scientific explanations for human behaviours and cultural practices that, up to now, have been improperly or inadequately explained by other social scientists and, at best, merely ‘interpreted’ in the humanities. It is claimed, moreover, that, in thus furnishing the missing link between the natural and the human sciences, evolutionary psychology has effected a crucial turning point in intellectual history, inaugurating a conceptual integration of all fields of genuine knowledge under the mantle of a single, comprehensive scientific discipline or, in effect, a super natural science. As I indicate below, there is good reason to be sceptical of these somewhat grandiose claims.

A bit of preliminary map-sketching will be useful. Contrary to depictions by evolutionary psychologists, the most significant controversies over the claims and accomplishments of the programme are not between enlightened Darwinists and dogmatic theologians or between sober, up-to-date cognitive scientists and either ideology-driven humanists or social scientists clinging to archaic ideas.