Founding Evolutionary Psychology with Leda Cosmides

Hosts David Pinsoff and Dave Pietraszewski introduce the podcast and their guest, Leda Cosmides, reflecting on the history of evolutionary psychology and the journey of producing the podcast over nearly a year.

Leda Cosmides discusses her early motivations during the turbulent 1960s to understand human nature, her dissatisfaction with behaviorism and psychobiology, and how ethology and an eventual meeting with E.O. Wilson shaped her scientific path.

Guest Leda Cosmides recounts her early introduction to E.O. Wilson's sociobiology as an undergraduate, her advice from Wilson and Robert Trivers, and her participation in the Simeon Seminar. Leda Cosmides, Dave Pietraszewski, and David Pinsof discuss how early evolutionary approaches linked selection pressures to social organization.

Leda Cosmides explains the flaw of fitness teleology, clarifying that natural selection shapes cognitive mechanisms and design features rather than driving conscious motives to spread genes. Leda Cosmides, Dave Pietraszewski, and David Pinsof analyze George Williams' foundational 1966 book on adaptation and natural selection.

Leda Cosmides discusses historical critiques of radical behaviorism, focusing on Herrnstein's opposition to Skinner and the influential findings of John Garcia's taste aversion experiments with rats. The speakers examine how these studies challenged the equipotentiality assumption and the role of psychological similarity spaces.

Leda Cosmides describes her undergraduate experiences attending professor office hours, conducting research on pigeons and mental rotation, and interacting with prominent psychologists like Stephen Kosslin. The conversation touches on how cognitive approaches were shifting away from strict behaviorist models.

Leda Cosmides describes her early exposure to cognitive psychology methods and how she repeatedly encountered a fellow student, John Tooby, whose ideas matched her own during graduate seminars. Dave Pietraszewski and David Pinsof listen as Cosmides recounts Tooby's background in physics, his inspiration from science fiction and Schrödinger, and his unconventional path through Harvard's psychology department under the dominant influence of behaviorism.

Leda Cosmides discusses the necessity of cognitive mechanisms and mental structure to overcome combinatorial explosion problems like Quine's gavagai indeterminacy. With input from Dave Pietraszewski and David Pinsof, they explore historical figures like Hume and Quine, examining how innate predispositions challenge strict blank-slate empiricism and behaviorist assumptions in psychology.

Leda Cosmides and the hosts discuss the historical gap between sociobiology's focus on ultimate selection pressures and the necessary role of proximate cognitive mechanisms. Cosmides explains how early sociobiologists often overlooked the phenotype and how the cognitive revolution provided the missing information-processing language needed to connect evolution to psychology.

The speakers reflect on the extent to which the computational and adaptationist level of description is understood today. Cosmides notes that while application is still incomplete and many researchers are not fully adaptationist, the field has improved immensely compared to early psychology when evolutionary principles were entirely absent.

Dave Pietraszewski, David Pinsof, and Leda Cosmides discuss the difficulty of moving past folk psychology and adopting an engineering, adaptationist perspective on the human mind. They examine Richard Dawkins's extended phenotype and gene's-eye views compared to individual-level selection.

Leda Cosmides recounts how she and John Tooby discovered key figures like Martin Daly, Margot Wilson, and Don Symons, discussing Symons's work on adaptationist analysis in primates and human sexuality, as well as the famous bet between Symons and Don Brown regarding human universals.

Leda Cosmides discusses her collaborative research with Ricardo Guzman in Chile, challenging traditional views from Tversky and Kahneman regarding human rationality and transitive preferences. With attribution to Guzman, Cosmides explains how presenting moral trade-offs reveals that people actually make rational choices, behaving as if they generate utility functions.

Leda Cosmides, Dave Pietraszewski, and David Pinsof examine how economists use utility functions to predict market behavior without modeling individual minds. They contrast this with experimental economics and evolutionary psychology, noting that Vernon Smith and his colleagues showed human preferences extend beyond narrow monetary self-interest.

Dave Pietraszewski, David Pinsof, and Leda Cosmides discuss how experimental economics and behavioral economics approach human decision-making differently. Cosmides emphasizes the importance of understanding the historical background and underlying assumptions of different academic disciplines rather than dismissing them, noting that assuming people are intelligent and trying to solve specific problems aids interdisciplinary translation.

Leda Cosmides, David Pinsof, and Dave Pietraszewski analyze how different fields define rationality, focusing on Tversky and Kahneman's heuristics and biases research. Cosmides critiques interpretations of prospect theory and framing effects, explaining how experiments involving perceived need levels demonstrate that human choices can be fully rational when accounting for participants' goals and communicative inferences.

The speakers discuss how moral and political reasoning often involves discovering neglected aspects of a problem rather than just following expectations or calculating utility functions. They also reflect on scientific maturity, noting that dismissing unfamiliar research as "dumb" hinders learning, and examine alternative academic publishing models.

As the interview concludes, Leda Cosmides reflects on the decades-long impact of evolutionary psychology on intellectual life and everyday culture, expressing amazement at how widely evolutionary thinking and ancestral perspectives have been adopted across various domains like health and diet.

Leda Cosmides, Dave Pietraszewski, and David Pinsof discuss the challenges of terminology in evolutionary psychology, specifically reflecting on the use of the term 'innate' versus 'reliably developing species-typical mechanism' or 'adaptation'. They discuss how misunderstandings by critics or researchers do not necessarily invalidate a useful framing or metaphor, and explore why clarity and intellectual honesty matter more than trying to please everyone.

The speakers discuss the importance of civility, politeness, and mutual respect in scientific discourse, contrasting hostile attacks with constructive critique and the tradition of robust debate followed by camaraderie. Dave Pietraszewski and David Pinsof thank guest Leda Cosmides for her foundational work and dedication to scientific truth, concluding with closing announcements and recommendations for listeners.

Hosts Dave Pietraszewski and David Pinsof banter about potential podcast merchandise, including fanny packs, t-shirts, hats, and novelty sneakers featuring a minimalist black-and-white aesthetic, while encouraging listeners to support the show on Patreon to fund production.

The hosts conclude the episode by asking listeners to leave positive reviews and constructive feedback, expressing their appreciation for both praise and offbeat criticism before wrapping up for the week.