Evolutionary Psychology under Attack

Abstract

Eugenics became increasingly out of step with the changes occurring in American society in the interwar years. The desire to reform American society and provide opportunities for advancement to the less fortunate was temporarily neglected in the 1920s, but came back with full force with the challenges of the Depression era. Social scientists who wished to contribute to the restructuring of American society and increase its fairness and egalitarianism were put off by the elitist presumptions and racist overtones of eugenics. Rather, the environmental behaviorists offered a paradigm that seemed to suggest much more open possibilities in human potential. In essence, environmental behaviorism seemed to be more liberal, and a more fitting scientific ideology for liberal minded Americans.¹

In the field of science, as in any other… individuals… find themselves behaving just as other human beings do in similar situations. In the scramble for places, for economic security and prestige, things are done and offenses committed against human beings whom… scientists are so selflessly supposed to serve, offenses which, if anything, are perhaps a little worse than those for which other classes of mankind are so frequently condemned.

M.F. Ashley-Montagu, “Selfish Scientists,” p. E9