Storia naturale del cervello: un dialogo (a lieto fine?) tra evoluzione e neuroscienze

Biological evolution and brain studies did not dialogue so much in the past. Misunderstandings and “arguments by exception” have delayed the mutual influence since the time of Darwin and Wallace. Today the scenario has changed and new data, coming from rapidly growing and different disciplines, allow to outline the first solid evolutionary hypotheses about the natural history of mind. However, since the mid-nineties of the last century, the early stages of this promising new phase have been monopolized by the scientific research program called “Evolutionary Psychology”, which presents a set of experimental and theoretical weaknesses, as well as a questionable rigidity due to the use of a strongly adaptationist and selectionist version of the neo-Darwinian explanation. We will summarize the main epistemological and scientific criticisms to these studies and some proposals to outline a different integrated science of human behavior, that could really merge neurosciences and biological evolution in an up-to-date theoretical framework.