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WHAT is evolutionary psychology for? It is certainly a very effective method of generating stories that captivate newspapers, weekly science magazines and an associate professor of philosophy at Northern Illinois University. En route to this post, David Buller saw a BBC programme, probably unbroadcastable in the US, featuring film of human sperm 鈥渟etting off into battle鈥�. He 鈥渉ad an epiphany鈥�, and immediately abandoned his 鈥渟uddenly boring research into whether evolutionary theory could explain the representational properties of mental states鈥� to explore evolutionary psychology.

But as Buller examined this field, his doubts grew. He detected a growing orthodoxy that humankind is defined by the environment of the Pleistocene. Adherents hold that consideration of evolutionary pressures in the environment can predict psychological 鈥渕odules鈥� that can be confirmed by experiments now.

Much of that environment, however, consisted of other, unknowable, psychologies. What can we can be sure of, beyond the 鈥渇our Fs鈥� 鈥� fight, feed, flee, reproduce? Does evolutionary psychologists鈥� focus on competition, rather than the cooperation essential to all four, betray an ideological bias? Is theirs the parody Pleistocene of The Flintstones cartoon? In Adapting Minds Buller meticulously and relentlessly dismantles the pretensions of leading evangelists of the orthodoxy. He writes clearly, with great restraint, but with unavoidable length and density.

Psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, for example, say step-parents are much more likely to assault children than are their natural parents, as simple-minded selfish-gene theory predicts. In a chapter that is practically a book in itself, Buller reports his own research into the grim statistics. These actually show, among other things, that to maximise your chance of surviving childhood you should get yourself adopted by adults totally unrelated to you 鈥� and that some psychologists are bad at statistics.

And the entire orthodoxy is, Buller concludes, a category error. It seeks a 鈥渦niversal human nature鈥� that defines our species. Water is a 鈥渘atural kind鈥� defined by properties. A species is not a 鈥渘atural kind鈥�. It is defined by continuity of descent and it is an 鈥渋ndividual鈥� (albeit a collective one), just as a butterfly is an individual, even when it鈥檚 a caterpillar and even though its constituent cells change during its life. Universal properties are a nonsense. The orthodoxy is, he says, 鈥渁 theoretical vestige of natural theology鈥�in no true sense evolutionary.

And this, I conclude, is why the orthodoxy enthrals journalists: it is a barely disguised set of normative morality tales about how humans should be. Buller hopes that Adapting Minds can clear the way for some actual science about how evolution equips us to have psychologies. Anyone with a serious interest in evolution, psychology or humanity should read it to free their mind for that task.