Paternity Uncertainty and Evolutionary Psychology

How a Seemingly Capricious Occurrence Fails to Follow Laws of Greater Generality

Bibliographic Data

ID2321877
AuthorsMichael Gilding (0000-0001-6966-3011, Swinburne University of Technology, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume43
Issue1
Pages140-157
Publication date2009-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0385 • E-ISSN: 1469-8684
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0038038508099102
OpenAlexW2133245693
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited18

Evolutionary psychologists aspire to show how -contrary to 'soft' social sciences such as sociology - 'seemingly capricious' occurrences in the realm of human behaviour follow biologistic 'laws of greater generality' (Pinker, 2005: xii).This article is a case study of the 'seemingly capricious occurrence' of paternity uncertainty. According to evolutionary psychologists, paternity uncertainty arises from the fact that men are 'hard wired' to seek as many sexual partners as they can, and women to seek men of superior genetic quality. This account is said to be demonstrable through independent biological evidence of widespread discrepancy between putative and actual biological paternity in human populations.Yet close scrutiny of biological evidence and new evidence from representative sex surveys indicate that evolutionary psychologists consistently inflate estimates of paternal discrepancy. Evolutionary psychologists' account of paternity uncertainty highlights their overattachment to biologistic laws at the expense of understanding the social dimensions of human behaviour

Economics · Evolutionary psychology · Generality · Political science · Positive economics · Realm · Scrutiny · Sociobiology · Sociology · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology

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