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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5618 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The third rampage of evolutionism: evolutionary pscyhology | |||||||||||||||||||||||
PerfectDeath Inactive Member |
my grandpa usses that exuse about smocking cause his father lived till he was 80... then he died from something to do with the lungs so they said it was the coal mines.
but annyway. i have started a new thread called "evolutionary advantage of guilt" and currently i'm only 17 so i lack the highschool education to go into colledges and universities. but back to ontopicness:you make a valid point about what evo-psyc studies or tries to explain... so what i seem to understand from your post is that some people either do not understand completely what evo-psyc is or you didn't understand their post... and of course i didn't understand your reply... i'll just go back to replying to what i can comprihend
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5618 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
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
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Parsimonious_Razor Inactive Member |
A lot of people do have a major misunderstanding of evo psych.
And you are never too young to start wading through peer-reviewed literature.
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Parsimonious_Razor Inactive Member |
At root the selfish gene is simply the idea that selection can work on genes rather than individuals. It’s a simple concept that can be used to explain a wide range of behaviors especially non-selfish actions. The "selfish gene" is how we develop altruism in the first place.
Evolutionary psychology attempts to examine mostly unconscious drives and desires that influence our behaviors. How that happens at a per individual level is not explained by the theory. This is where proximate factors fit in, such as choice. But on average across the species you will tend to see certain behaviors more common than others because of these drives. That’s all. There is no desire to push the right or wrong of these drives. In fact, many of the drives are undesirable and one of the first steps to preventing them is recognition and understanding of what exactly is going on. I have found in my personal life that evolutionary psychology has helped me understand and manage many areas of my life for the better. I have become more understanding of my self and others which has allowed me CONTROL over my actions. It has given me MORE choice. So realizing a particular behavior is driven by evolved psychology doesn’t provide me an excuse to simply give into it but rather even more power to over come it.
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5618 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
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
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Parsimonious_Razor Inactive Member |
Its not the individual that is selfish, but the gene. And "selfish" in thie respect means that it doesnt care about the individual it resides in but its own propogation. This can lead to very unselfish behavior in the individual, in fact this is the only explanation for such things as neoptism.
Just because I CHOOSE to use evo psych ideas to improve my life doesnt mean evo psych is making a value judgement. You are saying that it can be used to justify behaviors, I am saying it can be used for overcoming the same behaviors. The fact that it can be used equally for both ways shows in and off itself that the science isn't choosing sides. We as individuals do that.
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Parsimonious_Razor Inactive Member |
Just out of curiosity have you actually read The Selfish Gene?
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5618 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
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
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
Syamsu writes: 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. Shame on your Parsimonious Razor, how could you neglect to address such clear cut issues. TTFN, WK
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Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6503 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
quote: quote: Does anyone else here think he might have an easier time "trying and trying" to formalize what the selfish gene actually says if he actually did read it?
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5618 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
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
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
Awww, come on Syamsu, that post to Parsimonious razor was just an excuse to show off your grasp of consonance, assonance and alliteration, admit it!
TTFN, WK
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contracycle Inactive Member |
quote: Sure. As I said I am not claiming it is bad science - all I have remarked is that the the moment the only people deploying it in political arguments are the right. I consider this more-or-less unrelated to the content of the actual work; in much the way that Rand is only compelling to people who have only read Rand. The relationship between hardware and software is difficult to talk about; I imagine its going to be much worse trying to distinguish hardware that might have been layered down as a response to certain software, as it were. And I do think that the serach for functional modes is pretty much correct. But that said, the actual behaviour of the object as a whole can be be counterintuitive looking at the hardware alone. So I too will be watching with interest.
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Parsimonious_Razor Inactive Member |
Okay, you feel I am not addressing your points. Which I am trying to do. So I must be missing exactly what you are saying.
Help me break this down point by point so far what I have is: --You think evo psych is trying to provide a meaning or purpose for life that uses scientific certitude. --You think evo psych legitimizes evil actions or serves as an excuse for them. --You think researchers in the evo psych departments are evangelical in there enthusiasm for there research. Okay so those are your main points right? Have I described them correctly? Can we agree to not use Dawkins ideas for a while at least. We seem to be talking past each other. Lets directly address your main points, if I have them correct. This message has been edited by Parsimonious_Razor, 01-24-2005 18:55 AM
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5618 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
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
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