The third rampage of evolutionism: evolutionary pscyhology

This is a prophecy of doom kind of posting about evolutionary pscyhology. The first two rampages of evolutionism through beliefs of people refer to the involvement of evolutionism in WW I and WW II.Evolutionary psychology is currently spreading very rapidly in academic circles, at a speed which is much unprecedented. Previously sociobiology had been effectively surpressed in academia, sometimes with "violence" even, like when a famous sociobiologist was doused with water by activists when speaking publicly. The namechange made for an effective escape from that surpression, and now it is booming.Evolutionary psycholigists are exceptionally enthusiasts about their discipline. That may explain something about the speed at which it is spreading. But it also makes it more likely that evolutionists run too fast, not letting criticism of the discipline develop and discover the weak points of it.So let's pass over a few years, and see what might happen next.At some point a wide range of evopsych guru's will surface, from the academically inclined who present it as an alternative to religion, to the more spiritually inclined who seek to synthesise evopsych with traditional religions. They will take the place largely, that new-age religion has now.Apart from this more loose application, eventually evolutionary psychologists becomes applied to clinical psychology. And it's application in clinical psychology might lead to phenomenal success because:1. scientific certitude for your convictions is much more stronger or forceful then conviction by faith, so the placebo effect much larger. To say "I know the meaning of life" as a scientific certitude, is much more forceful then to say it as a matter of faith.2. the evangelic enthusiasm of evolutionary psychologists brings a warm social context to the treatment.3. the "liberating" effect of the apparent evilness of evolutionary psychology. People who might otherwise be generally too scared to think of things like murder, rape, cheat, lie, steal, will now "find" and identify these things within their psychology, as where their "selfish" genes are operating. Their perspective on life very much broadened by this, it allows to consider a greater range of options on what to do with their life.So after some time a signficant proportion of the population, say 5 percent, basicly has evopsych as their religion. They may actually not identify themselves as such, maybe even go to traditional church still, but on a practical basis their religion would be evolutionism. Such as their main goal in life would be formulated as to conquer their selfish genes and become altruist, and on a day to day basis they would be continuously much aware of such things, and practice religious rites to sustain that awareness.Criticism of evopsych may have catched up a bit after it has become widespread, and possibly it may even become discredited in academia, but persist as a very separate discipline from the rest of academics. But it becomes impossible to let go of it, because of the success it has in clinical psychology. It is very difficult to take away something from a depressed or otherwise mentally disturbed person, that actually seems to work.So what are these 5 percent going to be up to in society? Havoc and mayhem of course. They will end up doing what they think their selfish genes are telling them to do. Since they mistake their hatereds as an effect of their genes, in stead of as a sinful will of their own selves, their hatereds will grow unchecked. All what an evopsych ends up doing is putting a thin veil of altruism over a rising tide of hatered. As evolutionary psychology is more focused on the individual, I think that for most it would lead to victimization of their own selves, rather then that would be inclined to go killing everyone else. So we might see phenomenally high suicide rates, but also an increase in serial killers. How evolutionary psychology would influence politics is more difficult to say. I think we may well see the return of a widespread more sophisticated kind of racism in politics.Special concern is for China, because that society more then any other is more radical in it's application of science. They already have extensive eugenic laws, and they would likely be more vulnerable to evopsych.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

The information on which the prediction is based, is the involvement of evolutionism in WWI and WWII. Many of these Social Darwinists were highly intelligent, able and respected scientists, I think it is a mistake to paint these people as some kind of side-phenomenon outside of science.The most fundamental error with the previous social darwinists was the ignorance, and neglect of decisions. And nothing much has changed in this regard, decision is still neglected and denied within science, and so it is too within evolutionary psychology. That is the fundamental prejudice which manipulates the discipline towards certain doom.As before what leads to evo-psych believer to doom, is that he or she falsely identifies his or her hatereds not as decisions of will, but as mechanical effects of their "selfish" genes". This allows their hatereds to grow un-checked, while leaving the evopsych in a delusional state of innocense.You yourself talked about situational and environmental factors leading to poverty. What you should do is everytime mention decisionmaking as also a contributing factor. Why the people are poor is because they made the choices that lead to poverty. They choose to drink and party in stead of study.The denial of choice I more identify with left-wing politics, but I guess it's prevalent in right-wing politics as well.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Could you please develop an evopsych rationalization about developing the extended family as a socio-economic unit? It should be a book that talks to the academically inclined basically, in terse forbading language of scientific certitude.In the old hunter-gather society the "income" was shared in familyclans. Our brains are hardwired to this kind of sharing. The anonymous social security system we have now, doesn't appeal much to our hardwired sense of sharing. etc. etc. It should also say that there should be a continuous effort to keep marriage a free choice, in a clanshare scheme, and that sharing between primary family members(siblings, parents-children) should be left free, except for parents taking care of children up until 18. Just cock up some fantasy story about how this has always been the case in hunter-gather societies.I think the book will have about the same scientific merit as evopsych stories in general. So all other things the same, why not make evopsych focus on my other intellectual hobbyhorse of developing the extended-family as a socio-economic unit providing upward mobility?regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I thought the basic standard in evopsych is Dawkins "the selfish gene" which seems to be the seminal work that carries the "revolution". Just write up some unformalized, hateful, moralistic rot in a popularpress book. Next start promulgating this "finding" in TV lectures aimed at children as established scientific facts, and later bring your buddy and fellow evopsych enthusiast John Cleese on TV to start talking about how some english moviestar is "in fact" attractive. Let's just say that the standards you talk of are much imaginary. The naturalistic fallacy is more a waiver to charge into issues like "attractiveness" with careless abandon, rather then that it constrains in real terms, the crossover to ideology. The naturalistic fallacy places the fault outside of science, in interpreting it, while of course fundamental prejudice about choice is already within the science to begin with.Your contention that choice is recognized within evolutionary psychology seems dubious. Supposedly they pay lipservice to the idea of choice now and then, but going any further then that to recognizing choice as a basic reality will meet up with forceful resistance from "hard" science. Supposing choice is true to fact, I'm pretty sure this must mean that either evolutionary psychology becomes trivial, or that it only has significance if it can make clear a relationship between genebased mechanism and free choice.So I think you are still doomed. I think you are basicly naive about the scientific process. To think that a fundamental prejudice like the denial of choice would be checked by peerreview and other science standards. Any affirmation of choice is more likely to be cut down in peerreview. You have to give some better reason why you won't fall into the exactsame trap as the goodintentioned highly intelligent social darwinists did before you.I believe choice is a very wideranging phenomenon, and so yes I would say that most all poverty in the world is mainly because of choices made that were avoidable. An African that elects a crook, basicly knows that he or she is electing a crook. And while the poverty was not hoped for, it was a consequent of the choice to elect a crook.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

The selfish gene is 2 ideas, 1 that the gene is the unit of selection, 2 that the unit of selection is selfish. There never was a previous theory of the selfish individual.I think you are just showing that the naturalistic fallacy means nothing in real terms. It doesn't prevent from people ordering their lives in terms of the selfish gene theory.I think you are just destroying knowledge about choice in the process, so you don't have more power to overcome "selfish genes".regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Have you actually read my postings. That comment about individuals not being selfish does not actually address my post. And most of what you write does not address my postings, such as you don't discount the self-confidencetrick of knowing the meaning of life with scientific certitude, the liberalizing effect of the "evilness" of evopsych, or the evangelic enthusiasm of evopsychs.No I haven't read the selfish gene, except for a few parts of it. I hope you will allow people the freedom to decide what they put in their minds.I have tried and tried to formalize what the selfish gene actually says, which you say is the simple enough message that the genes are a, or the main, unit of selection. But as before the new thing in it is to posit selfishness, not to posit the gene as the unit of selection. Now try and formalize this bit about selfishness, and you will see that selfishness, and altruism are only 2 of a larger category of behaviours. If selfishness is stated as a + - relationship, then there are also a host of other possible relationships, + +, - -, etc.... But you have been deceived IMO to think in terms of a false good vs evil dichotomy, of altruism vs selfishness, disregarding all the other possibles. This fault in systemacy is of course intentional for Dawkins to mimic religion.You talk of genes caring, but of course they only "care" between quotationmarks. I seriously wonder if you actually do the tiresome but neccessary thing to put quotationmarks in all your thoughts about it. You are not immune to identity-problems, or associate problems about the meaning of life. These things don't just magically disappear after puberty, much as people like to laugh it of. I think you must be inviting such problems by the selfish gene theory.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

More crudeness of the people so desperate for the truth that they discard any nuance and complexity, fired on by grandiose dreams of progress.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I think that evolutionary psychology facillitates evil actions, in the way as described 2 times before. Hatereds become depersonalized into gene-mechanisms in the mind of the evopsych, which leaves them to grow unchecked. This is all a consquent of the widespread prejudice against choice in science, and prejudice for any kind of "cause and effect" mechanism. Hatereds become to be seen as mechanisms, while they are choices of will. That prejudice within evolutionary psychology is my main point.Sure I agree that evolutionary psychology should not use Dawkins ideas, nor ideas from any other person which are not formalized, or use imprecise ideas that have strong associative and emotive meaning. Well you either take proxy-responsibility for the fellow, or you argue to discard him from the discipline. This idea of just leaving him out of the picture when criticizing evolutionary psychology, while he plays such a fundamental role in the development of it, I find very evasive.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I followed your link and looked at a page on the web.http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/emotion.htmlRemember that what we are looking for is if or not evolutionary psychology recognizes choices, as in a point where things can go one way or another, and at that point it is decided which way it will go.They do mention choice, but.. there is nothing actually decided. It is programmatical in the sense of a cause and effect mechanism.I'll try to make the difference between actual and fake choice clear in computerprogram language .a fake choice where the outcome is predetermined:===============================
if dangerlevel > criticaldo "flight"elsedo "fight"end if
==============================There was no actual choice here between fight or flight, the outcome was predetermined by the values "dangerlevel" and "critical".a "real" choice where the outcome is not predetermined:============================
action=0
threshold=100do while action < thresholdif random(fight, flight)=fightfight=fight +1
flight=flight-1elseflight=flight +1
fight=fight -1endifaction=max(fight, flight)enddo
============================
Due to the randomness function the outcome is not predetermined.Now look at where in all the article there is a single event where the outcome is not predetermined. There isn't any. So they use the language of choice, and emotion, but they just not include things going one way or another in their concept of choice. They even explicitly deny free will."An evolutionary psychological theory of the emotions"
....
" To behave functionally according to evolutionary standards, the mind's many subprograms need to be orchestrated so that their joint product at any given time is functionally coordinated, rather than cacophonous and self-defeating. This coordination is accomplished by a set of superordinate programs - the emotions.""All cognitive programs - including superordinate programs of this kind - are sometimes mistaken for "homunculi", that is, entities endowed with "free will".edited to add:
As Tooby and Cosmides seem to be quite dominant in the discipline, it's case closed I would say. The acceptance of choice in evolutionary psychology is just meaningless lipservice. It is no coincedence either that they corrupt the meaning of choice in saying natural selection "chooses", while at the same time saying natural selection is a force that has no chance in it, but just outside it. This corruption must follow from their omitance to actually posit events which may turn out differently as choices.regards,
Mohammad Nor SyamsuThis message has been edited by Syamsu, 01-26-2005 08:49 AMThis message has been edited by Syamsu, 01-26-2005 08:50 AMThis message has been edited by Syamsu, 01-26-2005 10:50 AM

But all choices must be able to come out one way or the other, otherwise they are not choices but other, hence the absolute need for a randomness function as the point where the event can come out one way or another. The emotions and choices the evopsychs talk about, do not have this point, at all. So as to what we were actually discussing; yes evopsychs deny and neglect choice, because they say a choice and an emotion doesn't neccesarily come out one way or another.It makes me ill to think of emotions that way, as machine-mechanisms. They have made a construct of an emotional being, that doesn't neccesarily have any choice whatsoever, can't go one way or another in the event. Free will is left entirely out of the construct, and is not a neccessary part of it. Now we can expect the usual social darwinist papers on genetic laziness, and courage, in animals and humans. It is a certainty that such thinking must result in racism, the worship of the blood as the creator which decides.You might want to consider how deadly it is for a competitor to basicly be completely predictable. My program doesn't reflect it much, but I am basicly supposing when 2 competing animals engage in a mutual stare, that the chance between fight or flight is rapidly fluctuating, due to their choosing.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

You are using words based on your prejudice against things going one way or another. I highly doubt that in a court of law somebody could be found guilty for a "choice" which couldn't actually turn out any other way. Obviously there's something terribly wrong here. It's basicly the exactsame thing all over again as previous attempts at applying Darwinism to psychology, because the fundamental prejudice is the same.It is of course a myth promulgated by evopsychs that in the 150 years since Darwin's theory, there wasn't actually an attempt to apply Darwinism to psychology. That was one of the first things they tried, and the result was a flood of social darwinism.We should all fear an economically defunct China, where the citizens are indoctrinated into evopsych as the modern and rational alternative to religion. A no-nonsense scientific approach as basis for their desperation for progress. A marauding tribe of millions of selfidentified hunter-gatherers menacing the world.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

As mentioned before, the reason I lift out China, is because there they have instituted farreaching eugenic laws, backed by the science community. China also engaged in widespread cultural destruction under the communist regime, so to leave a less rich, less complex culture, vulnerable to seductive ideas. Evolutionary pscychology, social darwinism, mimics to a great extent common judgementalism. The language overlaps a lot with common judgementalism. So it is not like there is some steep learningcurve which a less scholarly Chinese can't overcome.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Chinese scientists back eugenics
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/198555.stm"The survey, which was conducted in 1993 among 255 geneticists throughout China, was reported in the British magazine New Scientist.Genetic testingsAlmost unanimously - by 91% - the scientists said that couples who carried the same disease-causing genetic mutation should not be allowed to have children."The cultural destruction was during Mao's "cultural revolution".As common judgentalism is much about valueing life, or survival, and avoiding death, and since evolutionists commonly use words such as goodness, superior, inferior to denote survival / reproduction the language overlaps.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

As you can see in this thread I have no real opposition anymore.It is simply the truth that science is prejudiced against things going one way or another.It is true that Darwinist language overlaps with common judgementalism.It is true that natural selection is prejudicial for putting events that run counter to natural selection, when the fittest don't reproduce, outside of the theory, as neutral selection.It is established by innumerable mainstream historians that the rise of pseudobiological racism was consequent upon the Darwinian revolution.And so on. My arguments are much on safe ground, my prediction of doom reasonable, for as far as predictions of doom can be reasonable.Now you see Jacen asking for an example of judgemental language, obliviously ignoring "selfish" which was talked about numerous times in this thread. The only reason someone can be so obtuse to ignore the reference to selfishness, is to have a great chinese wall around Darwinism in their mind to protect it from criticism. Gene selfishness, which according to Dawkins, typically leads to selfisness on the individual level. I should mention this, because actually no-one here accurately reflects Dawkins opinion, which is explicitly stated on page 1 or so of his book the selfish gene, that selfish genes makes for selfish human beings, and only by *exception* leads to "altruism" in people.Other examples of judgemental language can be found in Darwin's Descent of Man, or talk.origins introduction to evolutionary biology faq ( individuals perform behaviours for their own "good"), or anywhere on the web really.Obviously Parsimonious Razor, as a practicing evolutionary psychologist, is glaringly irresponsible for not dealing with the prejudice against things going one way or another, when dealing with subjects which are mainly about going one way or another, people and their choices. You are guilty Razor, you know the prejudice is there, yet you carelessly disregard the issue. You may not know about the history of your discipline, social darwinism, but you are compelled to know about it. You are just yet another hopeful preacher who thinks to have found some perspective by which people can resolve deep emotional and identity problems.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

You might want to put up some safeguard, to not end up like Konrad Lorenz and a group of fellow psychologists, breaking up families and sending the non-German looking ones to a concentration camp. (Ute Deichmann, Biologists under Hitler)Now what should this safeguard be. You offer the naturalistic fallacy. A mere figleaf, which results in biologists actually being less careful in their discipline, because it puts the fault outside of science.How about half of all moneys that go to evolutionary psychology is used to study the phenomenon of things going one way or another, philosphically and technically. When you say that randomness precludes choices, you are obviously totally ignorant about choice as a matter of things going one way or the other.A paid professional who studies emotions who is totally ignorant about choices.Clearly, obviously, as before, something is terribly wrong here. I think this may be actionable, as in a studentstrike to force scientists to pay attention to choice, would have lots of students participating.You merely pay lipservice to the phenomenon of things going one way or the other, you are shown to be totally ignorant of it. What you must do is study it, or else you should not engage in a discipline that has it's subject a thing that is most all about going one way or another, a human being.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu