The Evolution of "Just-So" Stories

Evolutionary Psychology has been criticized as simply generating "just-so" stories—plausible explanations that lack evidence. In this episode, Smith and Monroe question whether evolutionary psychology is useful for generating predictions rather than simply generating post-hoc stories. Chris—the evolutionary psychology expert in the group—defends his area and articulates the instances where evo psych can help inform people's predictions. We also get a bit sidetracked talking about sperm competition theory.

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