> But EP has not gotten us any closer to understanding “human nature.” Instead, its provocations about gender have distracted us from what is truly interesting—and radical—about Darwin. Several EP scholars argue that human nature was fixed in the Pleistocene Era, that modern culture is merely a flimsy cover for our cave-dweller minds. But a great deal of evidence suggests that evolution occurs at a much faster rate than evolutionary psychologists think.
On the one hand, this says that EP is wrong, and on the other, that there is a more radical and more interesting approach, more true to Darwin's thinking.
First, to say "EP has not gotten us any closer to understanding “human nature”" is a joke. At worst, it has at least eliminated some options. But the worst is very unlikely. Even if much of EP is wrong, many of the results appear to be solid. To so discount an entire field of science, done by very smart men and women, is completely unfair.
Second, the hint at a more "true-to-Darwin" approach of faster evolution, seems odd - just an attempt to say "EP is wrong, and boring - check this out!" First, if evolution is faster than we expected, then EP will adjust to that. It already has - we now know that things like lactose tolerance arose quite recently, and mental traits would not be surprising as well. Faster evolution will only make what these critics don't like about EP stronger, not weaker.
But more importantly, while the "frozen at the Pleistocene" approach is false - and already known to be false, no serious scientist believes that literally nothing changed since - it is also true to large extent. The Pleistocene is a huge amount of time, and in the short amount of time following it humanity diverged quite a bit - yet, we find humans extremely similar, mentally. From aboriginal Australians to Africans to Europeans to native Americans, mentally humanity is extremely close. That is very strong support that while clearly evolution continued after the Pleistocene, major things were already set by then.