Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: Who is the founder of evolutionary psychology?
The history of evolutionary psychology began with Charles Darwin, who said that humans have social instincts that evolved by natural selection. Darwin's work inspired later psychologists such as William James and Sigmund Freud but for most of the 20th century psychologists focused more on behaviorism and proximate explanations for human behavior. E. O. Wilson's landmark 1975 book, Sociobiology, synthesized recent theoretical advances in evolutionary theory to explain social behavior in animals, including humans. Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby popularized the term "evolutionary psychology" in their 1992 book The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and The Generation of Culture.[1] Like sociobiology before it, evolutionary psychology has been embroiled in controversy, but evolutionary psychologists see their field as gaining increased acceptance overall.
The term evolutionary psychology was used by American biologist Michael Ghiselin in a 1973 article published in the journal Science.[11] Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby popularized the term "evolutionary psychology" in their 1992 book The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and The Generation of Culture.[1]
In the debate surrounding the evolutionary psychology of language, three sides emerge: those who believe in language as an adaptation, those who believe it is a by-product of another adaptation, and those who believe it is an exaptation.
Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Psychological Association. It was established in 2007 as the Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, and obtained its current name in January 2014. EBS publishes manuscripts that advance the study of human behavior from an evolutionary perspective, with an emphasis on work that integrates evolutionary theory with other approaches and perspectives from across the behavioral sciences. The journal is published in partnership with the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society.
The presence that evolutionary theory holds in psychology has been steadily increasing.[4] According to its proponents, evolutionary psychology now occupies a central place in psychological science.[16]
Before 1990, introductory psychology textbooks scarcely mentioned Darwin.[15] In the 1990s, evolutionary psychology was treated as a fringe theory,[16] and evolutionary psychologists depicted themselves as an embattled minority.[2] Coverage in psychology textbooks was largely hostile.[16] According to evolutionary psychologists, current coverage in psychology textbooks is usually neutral or balanced.[16]
Additionally, evolutionary developmental psychologists emphasize research on psychological "development" and behaviors across the lifespan. Pioneers of EDP contrast their work with that of mainstream evolutionary psychologists, who they argue focus primarily on adults, especially on behaviors related to socializing and mating.
Evolutionary psychology is an approach that views human nature as the product of a universal set of evolved psychological adaptations to recurring problems in the ancestral environment. Proponents suggest that it seeks to integrate psychology into the other natural sciences, rooting it in the organizing theory of biology (evolutionary theory), and thus understanding psychology as a branch of biology. Anthropologist John Tooby and psychologist Leda Cosmides note:
Steven Forrest (born January 6, 1949) is an American astrologer, author and lecturer. He is the author of nearly a dozen astrological books and one of the founders of the school of Evolutionary Astrology, described by Forrest as "a form of psychological astrology which is integrated with metaphysics. Where a twentieth century psychological astrologer might focus on the dynamics of childhood, the evolutionary astrologer focuses on the "childhood of the soul"—prior lifetimes, and the issues left unresolved from them."
Symons, along with Tooby and Cosmides, were amongst the founders of the emerging school of evolutionary psychology, whose aim has been to focus more on these hypothesized proximate psychological mechanisms.
Mark van Vugt (born 9 May 1967, Amsterdam) is a Netherlands evolutionary psychologist who holds a professorship in evolutionary psychology and work and organizational psychology at the VU University (Vrije Universiteit) Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Van Vugt has affiliate positions at the University of Oxford, Institute for Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology (ICEA). 
Mark van Vugt studied psychology at the University of Groningen, followed by a PhD in applied social psychology at the University of Maastricht during which he worked on research into environmental sustainability and transportation as social dilemma and tragedy of the commons problems. After receiving his PhD in 1996, Mark van Vugt was hired by the University of Southampton, UK, to work as a lecturer in psychology, followed by a professorship in 2004 at the University of Kent, UK.
A frequent critique of the discipline is that the hypotheses of evolutionary psychology are frequently arbitrary and difficult or impossible to adequately test, thus questioning its status as an actual scientific discipline, for example because many current traits probably evolved to serve different functions than they do now. While evolutionary psychology hypotheses are difficult to test, evolutionary psychologists assert that it is not impossible. Part of the critique of the scientific base of evolutionary psychology includes a critique of the concept of the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation. Some critics have argued that researchers know so little about the environment in which "Homo sapiens" evolved that explaining specific traits as an adaption to that environment becomes highly speculative. Evolutionary psychologists respond that they do know many things about this environment, including the facts that present day humans' ancestors were hunter-gatherers, that they generally lived in small tribes, etc.
The history of the debate from the critics' perspective is detailed by Gannon (2002). Critics of evolutionary psychology include the philosophers of science David Buller author of "Adapting Minds", Robert C. Richardson author of "Evolutionary Psychology as Maladapted Psychology", and Brendan Wallace, author of "Getting Darwin Wrong: Why Evolutionary Psychology Won't Work." Other critics include neurobiologists like Steven Rose who edited ""Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments against Evolutionary Psychology"", and biological anthropologists like Jonathan Marks and social anthropologists like Tim Ingold and Marshall Sahlins.
Evolutionary psychology has generated substantial controversy and criticism. The criticism includes but is not limited to: disputes about the testability of evolutionary hypotheses, alternatives to some of the cognitive assumptions (such as massive modularity) frequently employed in evolutionary psychology, alleged vagueness stemming from evolutionary assumptions (such as uncertainty about the environment of evolutionary adaptation), differing stress on the importance of non-genetic and non-adaptive explanations, and political and ethical issues.
Evolutionary developmental psychology can be viewed as a more focused theoretical framework derived from the larger field of evolutionary psychology (EP). Mainstream evolutionary psychology grew out of earlier movements which applied the principles of evolutionary biology to understand the mind and behavior such as sociobiology, ethology, and behavioral ecology, differing from these earlier approaches by focusing on identifying psychological adaptations rather than adaptive behavior. While EDP theory generally aligns with that of mainstream EP, it is distinguished by a conscious effort to reconcile theories of both evolution and development. EDP theory diverges from mainstream evolutionary psychology in both the degree of importance placed on the environment in influencing behavior, and in how evolution has shaped the development of human psychology.
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological structure from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations – that is, the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection in human evolution. Adaptationist thinking about physiological mechanisms, such as the heart, lungs, and immune system, is common in evolutionary biology. Some evolutionary psychologists apply the same thinking to psychology, arguing that the modularity of mind is similar to that of the body and with different modular adaptations serving different functions. Evolutionary psychologists argue that much of human behavior is the output of psychological adaptations that evolved to solve recurrent problems in human ancestral environments.
The theoretical foundations of evolutionary psychology are the general and specific scientific theories that explain the ultimate origins of psychological traits in terms of evolution. These theories originated with Charles Darwin's work, including his speculations about the evolutionary origins of social instincts in humans. Modern evolutionary psychology, however, is possible only because of advances in evolutionary theory in the 20th century.
Evolutionary psychology is founded on several core premises.Evolutionary psychology has its historical roots in Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. In "The Origin of Species", Darwin predicted that psychology would develop an evolutionary basis:
Evolutionary psychology critics have argued that researchers use their research to promote a right-wing agenda. Evolutionary psychologists conducted a 2007 study investigating the views of a sample of 168 United States PhD psychology students. The authors concluded that those who self-identified as adaptationists were much less conservative than the general population average. They also found no differences compared to non-adaptationist students and found non-adaptationists to express a preference for less strict and quantitative scientific methodology than adaptationists.
A goal of evolutionary psychology is to explain psychological traits and processes such as memory, perception, or language in terms of adaptations that arose in the evolutionary history of humans. Traits and processes are thought to be functional products of random mutations and natural selection. Evolutionary biologists view physiological mechanisms, such as the heart, lungs, and immune system, in similar terms. Evolutionary psychology applies the same thinking to psychology. Evolutionary psychologists advance the view that much of human behavior is the cumulative result of psychological adaptations that evolved to solve problems in human ancestral environments. For example, Steven Pinker hypothesized that humans have inherited special mental capacities for acquiring language, making language acquisition nearly automatic, while inheriting no capacity specifically for reading and writing.
John Tooby, the founder of MacDonald's field of evolutionary psychology, criticized MacDonald in an article for "Salon" in 2000. He wrote, "MacDonald's ideas—not just on Jews—violate fundamental principles of the field." Tooby posits that MacDonald is not an evolutionary psychologist, and advocates models incorporating group-selection theory, a view of natural selection whose importance is disputed.
The evolutionary psychology of religion is the study of religious belief using evolutionary psychology principles. It is one approach to the psychology of religion. As with all other organs and organ functions, the brain's functional structure is argued to have a genetic basis, and is therefore subject to the effects of natural selection and evolution. Evolutionary psychologists seek to understand cognitive processes, religion in this case, by understanding the survival and reproductive functions they might serve.
mark van Vugt has contributed to the scientific literature by proposing evolutionary evolutionary psychology theories for human social behavior. On leadership followership and organizations through the evolutionary leadership theory. On intergroup relations through the male warrior hypothesis. On the evolutionary psychology of social dilemmas. On conservation and sustainability through the lens of evolutionary psychology and evolutionary mismatch. Recently he conducted work on the Napoleon complex adopting an evolutionary lens.
Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature is a book published by MIT Press written by philosopher of science David Buller, piecing together his criticism of evolutionary psychology. A large portion of the book is dedicated to a critique of empirical findings from three research groups in the field: that of David Buss, that of Cosmides and Tooby, and that of Daly and Wilson. Buller argues that the evolutionary psychology paradigms are "mistaken in almost every detail."
The book got a strongly negative review from anthropologist Clark Barrett in the "American Journal of Human Biology" who wrote: "Buller’s book has many useful elements, but it is based on simplistic assumptions and fallacious arguments that lead to faulty conclusions. If taken seriously, Buller’s denial of human nature would invalidate not only evolutionary psychology but also any field that attempts to produce generalizable knowledge about humans, including behavioral ecology, biological anthropology, and most branches of psychology, not to mention medicine."
The theories on which evolutionary psychology is based originated with Charles Darwin's work, including his speculations about the evolutionary origins of social instincts in humans. Modern evolutionary psychology, however, is possible only because of advances in evolutionary theory in the 20th century.