The Case for Modularity: Sin or Salvation?

The central thesis of P ANKSEPP and P ANKSEPP (2001, henceforth, P&P) is that there are no specially evolved, higher-order domain-specific cognitive mechanisms to speak of. Apart from the basic D ARWINIAN emotions (fear, surprise, anger, sadness, joy, disgust), so-called cognitive ‘modules’ are more likely “the product of dubious human ambition rather than sound scientific reasoning”. What evolutionary psychologists (as well as many cognitive and developmental psychologists) take to be modular structures are actually the epigenetic products of the ancestral emotional functions of the brain (rooted in what was once called “the limbic system,” M AC L EAN 1990) and more recent “general-purpose brain mechanisms”. In more than a dozen places, P&P repeat as mantra that empirical evidence indicates the modern human mind was created through the dual functioning of subcortical mammalian emotions and a neocortical general-purpose computational device. Furthermore, this highly flexible, all-purpose intelligence probably emerged “more rapidly via group selection than by individual selection”. There is much to commend the cautionary tale that P&P tell regarding possible excesses of sociobiological speculation, including what are arguably ‘just-so’ stories about modularized adaptations for rape (T HORNHILL /P ALMER 2000), homicide (B USS 1999) and emotional disorders such as depression (N ESSE /L LOYD 1992). P&P’s position on the derivative and epigenetic character of ‘secondary’ or ‘social’ emotions (guilt, love, empathy, etc.), is also defensible (e.g., D AMASIO 1994), although seriously debatable (cf. L E D OUX 1996; G RIFFITHS 1997). Finally, P&P’s take on the current, overlyfunded fad for neuroimaging (driven more by technological innovation and the industry it supports than by any theoretical insight) is credible. There can no more be a theory directly derived from observations of neuroimaging than there can be a theory derived directly from observations of meter readings; it is only in the service of some prior abstract theory that such observations can make sense. Nevertheless, there is no empirical evidence whatever to indicate that P&P’s central thesis is true, and much to suggest it is false.