ToM’s innate-ability evolutionary history rests on speculative just-so stories.

Evidence

These abilities are thought to be innate, present at birth or early maturing. Their evolutionary history is frankly imaginary: “Imagine the biological benefits to the first of our ancestors who developed the ability to make realistic guesses about the inner life of his rivals; to be able to picture what another was thinking about and planning to do next” (Humphrey, 1984, cited in Baron-Cohen, 1995, p. 21). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 406

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘frankly imaginary’ phrase ties directly to critique of evolutionary psychology’s just-so storytelling that the chapter’s framing develops; also echoes the author’s cautions about speculative adaptive-history narratives.
• APHORISMS: There is a general wisdom lurking: discipline that cannot document its own origins tends to invent an origin story.