The sketch is blank: No evidence for an explanatory role for cultural group selection

Abstract

As evidence that cultural group selection has occurred, Richerson et al. simply retrodict that humans use language, punish each other, and have religion. This is a meager empirical haul after 30 years. This contrasts sharply with the adaptationist approach to human behavior - evolutionary psychology - which has produced scores of novel, specific, and empirically confirmed predictions.