Science

Good stuff! I'm bookmarking this for future reference.

I particularly liked this point:

Thus, impulsivity can be understood as an adaptive response to the contingencies present in an unstable environment rather than a moral failure in which animalistic drives overwhelm human rationality.

I hate the false dichotomy of "animalistic" vs "rational", because animals are highly rational. They are even better than humans at some high-level tasks! For example: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/surprising-results-game-theory-studies-42926

That said, I don't think the lack of a physical basis should dissuade anyone from thinking of psychology in terms of evolution. Regardless of the physical structure of the brain, I think it is reasonable to consider that high-level human behavior has origins going far back in our evolutionary chain, and that we share much of that with our animal cousins. In any case, this idea should be supported by behavioral research, not by an appeal to neurology — and particularly not by an appeal to fake neurology.