DARWIN’S INTELLECTUAL LEGACY IN PSYCHOLOGY: WHAT PASSES THROUGH AND WHAT DOES NOT

Undoubtedly, Darwin had a large impact on psychology. This influence began immediately after the Origin of Species had been published, and has continued across the 20th century, when evolutionary theory has been enriched with a lot of exact explanatory models and research findings. These explanations imply new approaches and theoretical frameworksfor psychologists who are, in general, open to the evolutionary interpretations of human behavior. However, the relationship between evolutionary theory and psychology also implies certain disputes and debates about, among others, the behavioral outputs of natural selection, the ways of comparisons with animals, and the possibilities of confirming the theory. In the present paper I show some details concerning these debates, emphasizing that the endeavor to solve these problems may facilitate the further development of Darwinism.