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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5616 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The third rampage of evolutionism: evolutionary pscyhology | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
pink sasquatch Member (Idle past 6048 days) Posts: 1567 Joined: |
just recently the president of Harvard triggered much criticism by arguing for innate biological differences explaining the absence of women in positions of power. Whether a valid use of the reserach or otherwise, it is being used to advance conservative arguments. Summers didn't "argue for innate biological differences". He gave a list of possible (not probable) reasons why those holding high positions in science and math are disproportionally male, and innate differences was at the bottom of that list, following various social issues. The purpose of the list was to serve as points to research why women are not filling powerful roles in math/science, in order to improve the situation. Summers was giving a talk at an educational conference, and was promoting the improvement of the ranks of women in science. I find it sad that a man apparently cannot hypothetically mention the possibility of innate differences between men and women without being labeled a sexist and accused of "advancing conservative arguments".
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contracycle Inactive Member |
quote: So life is hard and then you die; many things are sad. This response is not unreasonable, however, because of the frequency with which it actually appears. I'm quite surprised to hear the claim that these research departments contain lefties because I have only ever encountered this argument in public in the service on a conservative agenda. You are quite correct to mention eugenics as comparator; eugenics is/was not inherently bad science, but the political uses to which it was put were certainly distasteful. In that case as in this, and echoing Parasomnium's point, just because something can be claimed to be natural does not lend it any normative validity - but that is not how it is likely to be used in the political domain. Like Eugenics, EvoPsych seems set to become a pet right-wing theory, mostly expounded by those with a conservative political agenda, regardless of the quality of the actual science. And ironically, it actually does look like pretty bad science to me becuase, as I remarked on another thread, there doesn't seem to be a model about what the brain is and does such that speculation as to evolutionary impact on the brain and its functions can produce meaningful conclusions. This message has been edited by contracycle, 01-21-2005 06:57 AM
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
Why do you need to look at the brain? Why not just study the behaviour? You can identify behavioural phenotypes in lab animals without studying their brains, why should it be any different for humans?
TTFN, WK
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Parasomnium Member Posts: 2224 Joined: |
contracycle writes: [...] Parasomnium's point, just because something can be claimed to be natural does not lend it any normative validity I did not make this point, I am not Parsimonious Razor. I just thought I'd make this clear. This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 01-21-2005 09:14 AM We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
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contracycle Inactive Member |
quote: Sure - you can record, categorise, collect, enumerate, list - lots of things. But you cannot interpret without some sort of understanding of what the brain is actually doing. So as soon as they enter the realm of "because" it starts to sound to me like an appeal to one of the various philosophies, rather than the sciences. Steven Pinker writes: "For ninety-nine percent of human existence, people lived as foragers in small nomadic herds. Our brains are adapted to that long-vanished way of life, not to brand-new agricultural and industrial civilisations. They are not wired to cope with anonymous crowds, schooling, written language, government, police, courts, armies, modern medicine, formal social institutions, high technology, and other newcomers to the human experience" Now, thats a fair enough observation as far as it goes, but it presumes the brain is firmly hardwired. Is that true? Is it even *likely*? I think not; the largely undifferentiated mass of the brain suggests to me something more like a memory array that can be situationally configured. I've read some stuff (such as the book on PTSD I mentioned the other day) that suggests that there have been several observed cases of brain functions shifting physical location, something that would not be possible in a hardwired machine. IMO, information science is a going to be as fundamental to biology as genetics, at the end of the day. Ultimately, genes themselves are just data.
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pink sasquatch Member (Idle past 6048 days) Posts: 1567 Joined: |
This response is not unreasonable, however, because of the frequency with which it actually appears. Oh I see. It is okay to be unreasonable as long as you are basing that attitude upon stereotypes. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
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PerfectDeath Inactive Member |
i'm not too sure what evolutionary psychology exactly states or suggests (probably cause my psych teacher is too obsessed with maslow) but i've found that people do not act entirely for themselves.
this i've seen from experience, we tend to group together, so most of these crimes will happen with multiple people (in my oppinion) because i see no clear evolutionary advantage for acting alone and being overly violent. if people who do belive in evo-psyc do end up becoming like that then it is because they belive in annotehr part of evo-psyc. inno if i'm all wrong about it because all my pscy teacher said is evo-psycologists belie in is food, sex, and sleep... wich i belive is incorrect because lots of stuff is missing from that description.
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Parsimonious_Razor Inactive Member |
If you have read much Pinker than you should realize that the claims of neuroplasticity are greatly exaggerated.
I presented a talk recently to a conference on neuroscience and stroke recovery about some of the "hottest" research on brain plasticity and what it means for conversion of function. Basically very little. You can sometimes transfer function to areas of the bran that are already similarly designed for the same function. Most famously and robustly you can often wire the optical nerve to the audio cortex and still get okay vision. But the audio and visual cortex function very similar. Its like saying the fact that a scooter can be converted into a skate board with only minor changes means that a Volkswagen bug can be converted into a Boeing 747 with only minor changes. Brain plasticity, at the moment at least, doesn’t really deserve the world "plasticity" in there at all. Also Evo-psych research is beginning to do exactly what you are asking. You have to realize we are just now beginning to enter a period of technological development that even allows us the ability to non-intrusively study how the brain is working in humans to the precision needed in evo-psych. I will bring up one study that is going on right now that I am peripherally involved in. A researcher found a brain structure in female mice that is used to assess testosterone features in male mice and is activated during her estrus period. The research found almost the same exact structure in women and preliminary research using FMRI has shown that it appears to be functioning in almost the same way. So if we also have a homologous behavior between female mice and women with testosterone assessment during estrous. The means we have both a brain structure corollary and a behavior corollary. Now as with all things nothing is proof but the science is getting better and better. This is just the beginning.
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Parsimonious_Razor Inactive Member |
Its about a WHOLE lot more than sex, food and sleep. There are a lot of different ways its being utilized. I am using it for developing economic models for example.
But a lot of it is sex, food and sleep. But a question: how much time per day do you devote to either participating in or thinking about sex, food and sleep? Believe it or not those are some pretty important things to people. And for good reason! And don't get too deluded by Maslow.
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5616 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
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
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5616 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
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
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PerfectDeath Inactive Member |
i'm not being deluded by maslow, in truth i keep finding flaws in it because i'm criticaly thinking... but then the teacher doesn't like my argumenmts.
but i should get on topic. i have herd about in some areas in europe like switzerland were people are so trusting that the bar keeper will leave the bar to sleep and let the customers serve themselves and pay for the drinks... this shows that we can have trusting relations with complete strangers. what is the evolutionary benifit of that?i think that is to show that you trust others that they won't steal from you. also this goes into having guilt... why would we have guilt... i think i'm gettin off topic a bit here will post new topic on evolutionaryadvantage for having guilt. Yes food sex and sleep are major parts of what we do... but there are things like relationships bettween others of the same gender (friends, comrades, neigbours, etc)... there are more. ummm now i just forgot the entire point of this topic... i'm not to sure what exactly we are debating.
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Parsimonious_Razor Inactive Member |
Do you believe all people who are poor made decisions that made them poor? Or are there some people who are poor do to factors outside there direct control?
But beyond the various roles of decisions and environment there is a more fundamental misunderstanding with what evo psych does. Evolutionary Psychology (as opposed to its closely related but fundamentally different fields of evolutionary anthropology) focus on what has been deemed ultimate causes rather than proximate causes. Things that operate in the life time of the individual and on specific individuals are proximate causes. Evolution can offer little to nothing to say about these various proximate causes unless they some how relate directly back to selectional mechanisms in the past. A common example is sea turtles eating plastic bags. The existence of the plastic bag and the sea turtle eating the plastic bag are not described in evolutionary psychology. The only thing that might play a role is the selection pressure that lead to the hunting and consumption of food. So in humans evolutionary psychology it is not interested in focusing in on individual choices or novel circumstances. Such as the role of playing too much video games and company downsizing. These are proximate and novel circumstances. Evo psych says these things are very important, but it is not the material that we study.
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Parsimonious_Razor Inactive Member |
You left out the part where you develop operational definitions for these phenomenon and figure out how to objectively measure it. Also create a set of predictions about what you would expect to find if your ideas are true.
Then you perform various experiments in cultures that are still in a hunter and gather society, and some low-technology agrarian societies. Develop why these things would provide an evolutionary advantage and find ways of showing the development using what is known about our ancestors. Look for similar behaviors as derived features in animals that are either phylogenetically close to us or that have similar social environments to provide selection pressure. If your studies of low-technology cultures, past development and derived characteristics all meet with the predictions you made from your original hypothesis you can move on to trying to identify the same trait in modern societies. Once you have experimentally showed the same traits in modern societies you are close to having a strong hypothesis. But now you can't claim right or wrong as derived by this hypothesis. Science doesnt give you morality. That is the naturalistic fallacy. So if you now want to push an agenda about how we need to change society to look more like our hunter-gather social units you need to abandon science all together. At this front you need to argue using more general philosophical and soft science approaches like demographic and GDP data to show people who use your system perform better. Evolutionary psychology doesn’t just make up a story and publish it ad hoc. Your first major error. There is a lot of solid experimental work and field work that goes into every one of the strong theories that have been developed. Evolutionary psychology doesn’t claim to derive the "correct" way to do things. In fact VAST amounts of space are taken up in books for popular culture and class time discussing the naturalistic fallacy.
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Parsimonious_Razor Inactive Member |
Well there are a couple things going on here. The first is what I call the "I-know-a-guy-stories." You run into these all the time in various fields as arguments against patterns or theories. But they have two flaws. One they are never very specific, so hard to know exactly what’s true or not or any details needed, and two they often describe the extreme examples of the bell curve. An example is "I know a guy that smoked 6 packs a day but lived till he was 90 and never got cancer." These kinds of arguments can't really be used against the pattern that smoking seems to cause cancer.
Now more specifically in your example, there is a HUGE area of evolutionary psychology that is dedicated to describing these kinds of social interactions. Reciprocal Altruism and cheater detection are some good examples if you want to explore it. Cosmidies and Tooby out of the University of Santa Barbra are leading a lot of that research. It looks at ideas like why do strangers trade goods when there is a time barrier involved (i give you goods now and you pay me back later). Why people risk their lives for strangers or ideals, ect. If you want to fully explore these ideas feel free to start a thread.
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