At Nature Human Behaviour, we are told that the replication crisis is due to lack of rigid adherence to such a theory:
Science, he explains, is about accumulating sets of observations that occur reliably—the Sun appears at different places in the sky depending on the season and time of day; finches have different shaped beaks depending on what they eat. “That’s the raw ingredients,” he says. “To make sense of it requires a framework to say, this is how all these different facts fit together, and this is why.” We explain these observations by developing theoretical models—of how the Earth rotates around the Sun on a tilted axis, of natural selection. Cathleen O’Grady, “The replication crisis may also be a theory crisis” at ArsTechnica
That’s not self-evident to everyone:
Tal Yarkoni, a vocal critic of poor behavioral science, agrees with the prescription of more formal modelling, but otherwise he thinks that more of a focus on theory could be a terrible idea. “Many of our problems actually stem from far too much concern with elegant theoretical frameworks,” Yarkoni argues. Muthukrishna and Henrich draw on the analogy of natural selection in biology, which Yarkoni considers apt. While it’s true that all of biology hangs on the principles of natural selection, for many areas of active biological research, he argues, “the distance between the ‘overarching theoretical framework’ and the concrete mechanisms under investigation is so vast that it’s usually pointless to consider the former at all.”
Instead, he suggests, the best way forward is to “accept that the world is really complicated. That in most domains even our best theories can only hope to explain a small fraction of the variation in the behaviors we’re interested in, and that we should probably place much more emphasis than we do on large-scale description and prediction (and less on causal explanation).” Cathleen O’Grady, “The replication crisis may also be a theory crisis” at ArsTechnica
Funny that Darwinian natural selection would be such a strong theory that “all of biology hangs on” it but that in many areas, it is “usually pointless” to consider it at all.
Paper. (paywall)
We can be fairly certain that any kind of double-down
See also: Natural Selection At Work: Smarter Chickadees Survive The Winter More Often
Darwinian Grandmother Hypothesis Takes Another Hit
and
Natural selection: Could it be the single greatest idea ever invented?
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Hmm… did I hear this before?
as to:
One problem with having natural selection as the ‘overarching theoretical framework’ for human behavior, as Dr. Skell points out in the following article, is that Natural Selection is used as a ‘narrative gloss’, instead of as a driver of research that fosters new discoveries. And as a ‘narrative gloss’, Natural Selection can be used to explain completely contradictory actions within human behavior with equal ease and because of that ‘endless flexibility’ in explanation, Natural Selection does not, and can not, ever provide a fruitful heuristic in any research to seeks to explain human behavior:
Moreover, if researchers focus in on exactly what the ‘overarching theoretical framework’ of natural selection actually predicts for human behavior, instead of just bringing in natural selection in as a narrative gloss, (i.e. a ‘just-so story) after the fact, so as to explain any given human behavior, then we find that the specific predictions of the ‘overarching theoretical framework’ of natural selection actually does not, and can not, predict and/or explain the vast majority of human behaviors, (nor, when we get down to the nuts and bolts of what natural selection actually predicts, can the ‘overarching theoretical framework’ of natural selection actually predict and/or explain the vast majority of what is happening in molecular biology).
Morally noble altruistic human behavior of any type is simply completely antithetical to Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ theory based on natural selection.
If evolution by natural selection were actually the truth about how all life came to be on Earth then the only life that should be around should be extremely small organisms with the highest replication rate, and with the most ‘mutational firepower’, since only they, (since they greatly outclass multi-cellular organism in terms of ‘reproductive success’ and ‘mutational firepower’), would be fittest to survive in the dog eat dog world where blind pitiless evolution ruled and only the fittest are allowed to survive. The logic of this is nicely summed up here in this following Richard Dawkins’ video:
In other words, since successful reproduction is all that really matters on a neo-Darwinian view of things, how can anything but successful, and highly efficient reproduction, be realistically ‘selected’ for? Darwin himself stated, “every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers;”
The logic of natural selection is nicely and simply illustrated on the following graph:
Thus, if the ‘overarching theoretical framework’ of natural selection were actually true, then, according to the predictions inherent within that framework, we should not even exist, much less should we have any morally noble altruistic human behavior to speak of.
In fact, when considering that virtually all of molecular biology is dependent on the mutual cooperation of countless billions and billions of molecules working in tandem for the singular purpose of keeping a organism alive, and considering that genomes themselves are now found to be in a state of ‘holistic cooperation’, instead of being in a state of ‘selfish genes’ (as Dawkins himself ‘predicted’), then, if Darwinian evolution were a normal science instead of being, basically, a pseudoscientific religion for atheists, then the entire ‘overarching theoretical framework’ of natural selection should be universally acknowledged as being falsified and thrown onto the garbage heap of failed scientific theories.
https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/getting-at-what-we-mean-by-truth/#comment-670691
Many people, including myself, consider Hitler to be a murderous madman, but at least he applied the ‘overarching theoretical framework’ of natural selection to human behavior consistently.
In fact, all the murderous totalitarian Communist regimes over the last century, and even up to today, were and are heavily influenced by the morality enshrined in the ‘survival of the fittest’ maxim of Natural Selection:
Thus, if we actually do try to apply what the ‘overarching theoretical framework’ of natural selection actually predicts for human behavior as a guide to human behavior itself, we consistently find that the corrosive effects of ‘Darwinian morality’ on overall human morality in general are disastrous.
In fact, we find that only when Christian morality was and is applied to overall human morality of a culture in general that man has been able to rise above the baser self-destructive instincts of selfishness (i.e has been able to somewhat rise above his sinful nature). As ancient historian Tom Holland notes, the belief that the ‘enlightenment’ saved western civilization from the ‘dark ages’ of Christianity is a false revisionist history. The truth is that Christianity saved western civilization from the ‘dark ages’ of the Greeks and the Romans.
For instance, Christianity alone among ancient cultures forbade infanticide,
In short, selfish Darwinian morality is at war with the noble and very good Christian morality that seeks to protect the dignity and rights of the weakest among us,
There simply is no place for ‘‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ in Darwinian evolution, much less is there caring for ‘the least of these’ to be found in the ‘overarching theoretical framework’ of Darwinian evolution,
Of supplemental note: Darwinian attempts to explain human behavior have now been further falsified by the validation of free will within quantum mechanics:
I am often perplexed to observe how often scientists fall into the reductionist trap, thinking their pet theory is all that’s needed to understand so much. I recall Daniel Dennett’s book, “Consciousness Explained” as my prime example. New theories are great, but they should come with a heavy dose of humility, recognizing that what we think we know may be wrong, or at best, only a small part of the answer.