Organisms inherit a set of environmental regularities as well as genes, and these two inheritances repeatedly encounter each other across generations. This repetition drives natural selection to coordinate the interplay of stably replicated genes with stably persisting environmental regularities, so that this web of interactions produces the reliable development of a functionally organized design. Selection is the only known counterweight to the tendency of physical systems to lose rather than grow functional organization. This means that the individually unique and unpredictable factors in the web of developmental interactions are a disordering threat to normal development. Selection built anti-entropic mechanisms into organisms to orchestrate transactions with environments so that they have some chance of being organization-building and reproduction-enhancing rather than disordering. Evolutionary psychology was founded on a new theory of development that encompasses, reformulates, and (we believe) logically reconciles other views such as nativism, environmentalism, interactionism, developmental systems theory, and others. Readers who want to understand what evolutionary psychologists actually think about development need to consult the original sources (see, e.g., Tooby & Cosmides, 1990, 1992) rather than relying on critics ’ misconceptions. Below, we address several confusions. Deficiencies in Basic Biology Because developmental systems theorists are psychologists rather than a more interdisciplinarily inclusive team, it is not surprising that they also provide questionable characterizations of fields outside of psychology, such as genetics, developmental biology, and evolutionary biology (e.g., Lickliter & Honeycutt,

Evolutionary psychology provides a cogent metatheory for psychological science. It has furnished compelling theories of major domains of human functioning, including mating, parenting, kinship, morality, cooperation, conflict, aggression, and aesthetics. It has produced hundreds of empirical discoveries missed entirely by prior psychologists. Developmental dynamics, properly conceived, can add to the theoretical foundation of evolutionary psychology. But it has not provided alternative theories capable of explaining the many detailed empirical discoveries made by evolutionary psychologists. Nor has it generated a comparable bounty of new empirical discoveries. By critical scientific standards— theoretical cogency, predictive accuracy, interdisciplinary consistency, and empirical harvest—modern evolutionary psychology fares well compared with alternatives. Charles Darwin is properly considered to be the first evolutionary psychologist. He offered these prophetic words at the end of his classic book, On the Origins of Species: “In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation ” (Darwin,

Obviously, a reproduction-focused discipline will find itself staring at the presumed endpoint – the reproductively mature organism. But that is a limited period of the human mind’s life, no matter how important and enjoyable it may be. Also, mainstream evolutionary psychology has, in seeking the human universal, not given enough consideration to universal differences. A cheater detection mechanism, for example, will probably be present from an early age, but hardly from the start. It has to have a developmental history. But due to sibling conflict and parent-offspring conflict there is reason to believe it may be present very early, making a developmental approach less relevant, but far from irrelevant (see Kennair, 2003). My own interest in evolutionary psychopathology and personality psychology has made me interested in behavioural genetics, but also in developmental psychology. I find the “human universals are adaptations ” perspective most rewarding, but find that it is too limited if it cannot address the other important reality of human nature, as Scarr (1995) pointed out in comment to Buss’s (1995) influential introduction to evolutionary psychology. In particular, a developmental perspective

Theodosius Dobzhansky (1973) famously opined that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. In The Origins of Morality: An Evolutionary Account, Dennis Krebs argues that the scientific study of morality is as muddled as biology without an evolutionary framework. Krebs prefaces the book by noting that he is not writing with you, the 21 st century reader, in mind. Instead, he is writing for an audience of one: a white-bearded Charles Darwin, who must familiarize himself with 130 years of theoretical developments since he shared his thoughts on morality in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1874). As such, the book offers an excellent summary of many of the epistemological underpinnings of contemporary evolutionary psychology. And, perhaps as a courtesy to Mr. Darwin, it does so without any of the popular culture references that are ubiquitous across many recent books using an evolutionary perspective to explore human behavior. This might make the book slightly less appealing to an audience expecting witticisms and cartoons, but it also makes it an easy fit as a text for courses in philosophy or psychology. Although Darwin might not appreciate the names that Krebs drops when describing

Abstract: This paper lays out some of the empirical evidence for the importance of neural reuse—the reuse of existing (inherited and/or early-developing) neural circuitry for multiple behavioral purposes—in defining the overall functional structure of the brain. We then discuss in some detail one particular instance of such reuse: the involvement of a local neural circuit in finger awareness, number representation, and other diverse functions. Finally, we consider whether and how the notion of a developmental homology can help us understand the relationships between the cognitive functions that develop out of shared neural supports. How are neural resources deployed to support cognitive functioning in the adult organism, and how does that architecture come about? That is, what evolutionary and developmental pathways does the brain follow in acquiring its repertoire of capacities? Consider two possible options, one that has been largely identified with the embodied/embedded school of cognitive science, and another associated with evolutionary psychology. A long-standing guiding principle of both embodied cognitive science (ECS) and evolutionary psychology (EvoPsy) is that cognition was built within a system primarily fitted to situated action. The central nervous system—the neocortex most definitely included—is first and