I haven’t read Adapting Minds, but I’ve seen responses to it by evolutionary psychologists. You can find a bunch of them on Cosmides’ and Tooby’s website
After what might seem like a reasonable review of the mate preferences literature, Buller concludes that evolutionary psychologists are mistaken in their claims of a universal male preference for relatively young women as mates and a universal female preference for high status men as mates. Male mating preferences, Buller argues, although sometimes containing a preference for young women, are far more complicated. We agree with this conclusion, but not because he demolishes the empirical evidence, or because his theoretical acumen is sharper than the many evolutionary psychologists who have written on this issue. Instead, we agree because the “alternative” he proposes is essentially the reigning consensus among evolutionary psychologists. He fails to understand that evolutionary psychologists also believe that people in different situations will behave differently. For instance, college aged fraternity boys and elderly widowers face different circumstances and are at different life-history stages; no one would expect them to have identical mates. Regarding the female preference for high status males, Buller goes even further, arguing that it is in fact non-existent—an artifact of skewed samples and mating preferences for similar others. In this conclusion, he is simply wrong, and we present evidence explaining why below. Indeed, much of the evidence we will cite is in papers he cites during his criticism, except that he repeatedly misconstrues the findings along the way.
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Buller’s arguments to the contrary have been shown to be false, superfluous, or a slight variant on the consensus of evolutionary psychologists. Throughout this response we have relied mainly on data and theories that were published prior to Buller’s book. Most of this work was available in papers he himself cites or was published by researchers whose work he is criticizing. Theories of shifting strategies
have always been part of evolutionary psychologists’ theories. Buller has created a straw man: He implies that evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that each sex has a single-minded focus on only one characteristic of potential mates—youth or status—regardless of other factors. In reality, evolutionary psychologists have always included multiple preferences in their theories of mate choice (see Buss’ textbook, 2004). He suggests that homogamy is a potent force in mating and that it explains many empirical phenomena for both sexes. This isn’t new or an alternative: Over a decade ago, Kenrick and Keefe (1992) incorporated similarity preferences into their evolutionary model. Buller’s one original hypothesis, the age-adjusted homogamy hypothesis, fails to convincingly account for any previously unexplained data.
Another negative review from Machery and Barrett concluded:
Buller has failed to mount a successful challenge to evolutionary psychology. Most of his critiques of the theoretical commitments
of evolutionary psychology miss the mark. Some misrepresent the literature; others are fallacious, drawing untenable conclusions from admittedly uncontroversial premises. His attacks against the empirical findings
are similarly erroneous. Most important, if Buller were right, there would
remain little place for a science at the intersection of psychology and
evolutionary biology. If, as he claims, Buller actually endorses evolutionary
approaches to human behavior, but simply wants to raise the standards
of the field, his book, alas, fails to do so.
The arguments of Buller’s critics seem well-reasoned and well-cited, though someone who has read his book would have to confirm that they are fair to him.
Has anyone from evolutionary biology proper weighed in with a critique of Buller? Even Buller’s critics admit that the book was well received generally in the academic press.
I haven’t read Adapting Minds, but I’ve seen responses to it by evolutionary psychologists. You can find a bunch of them on Cosmides’ and Tooby’s website
See this one by Delton, Robertson, and Kenrick for instance:
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Another negative review from Machery and Barrett concluded:
The arguments of Buller’s critics seem well-reasoned and well-cited, though someone who has read his book would have to confirm that they are fair to him.
Has anyone from evolutionary biology proper weighed in with a critique of Buller? Even Buller’s critics admit that the book was well received generally in the academic press.