ABSTRACT
Evolutionary theory is the central organizing principle in the life sciences. Like other theoretical pillars in science, its value comes not only from its ability to explain existing observations according to a set of lawful principles, but also from its ability to test those explanations with new predictions. Given that there is no competing scientific explanation for complex biological design, and that human behavior is undoubtedly guided by mechanisms that are biologically complex, the question is not whether evolution has shaped the brain mechanisms that underlie human behavior, but rather how it has done so. This is not to say that everything that evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized to date is correct; the merit of these hypotheses will continue to become clearer as more data accumulate. Rather, the point is that evolutionary approaches will be central to the scientific understanding of human behavior, and indeed have already proven their scientific worth by stimulating the formation of testable and novel hypotheses in psychology (Buss, 2005).
