Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Biosocial criminology in Wikipedia

The Biosocial Criminology Wikipedia page makes clear how much biosocial criminology depends on evolutionary psychology.

Not only because "Evolutionary psychology" is the largest section on the page, but because the reference list is chock full of evolutionary psychologists including Buss, Pinker, Daly and Wilson as well as the biosocial criminology bros I've already mentioned in the evo-psycho bro series: Kevin Beaver, Brian Boutwell, Matt DeLisi and John Paul Wright.

Today by way of P. Z. Myers is a blog post from Larry Moran, professor of biochemistry about evolutionary psychology which says in part:
...the field of evolutionary psychology is a mess and many scientists and philosophers think it is fundamentally flawed... 
... there's no denying that the discipline is being attacked. In fact, it's hard to think of any other academic discipline whose fundamental validity is being questioned so openly
But in spite of the many doubts and arguments against the discipline itself, biosocial criminology has decided to take evolutionary psychology and run with it. Including making the argument that "race" - something they never actually clearly define - is a determinant of intelligence and criminal inclinations.

Although just as with the essay at the University of Cincinnati web site I mentioned yesterday, there's no direct reference to race in the Wiki article. Or rather, there was no reference to race. I fixed that.