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Author Topic:   The third rampage of evolutionism: evolutionary pscyhology
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 76 of 236 (182170)
01-31-2005 10:07 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by Dan Carroll
01-31-2005 9:36 AM


Remember that sociobiology was previously very much oppressed and surpressed in academics. So I think a movement to force evolutionary psychologists to study choice, (choice as a matter of things going one way or another), and not just pay meaningless lipservice to the concept of choice, would be very popular in academics. Generally nobody trusts evolutionary psychologists very much, and I think I've shown more or less precisely the reason why they are not trusted, and what they should do to gain trust.
Your reply is just meaningless characterassassination, you have no point. Neither is Wounded King's post worth considering, when he asks why I think unity is a bad wordchoice, when I told him why in the post he was replying to. You keep poking me, and that's all.
I'm right, and well I would guess that even the majority of people on evc-forum agree that evolutionary psychologists are fundamentally lacking in their knowledge of choice as the point where something goes from several possible outcomes to an actual outcome, and should study it.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by Dan Carroll, posted 01-31-2005 9:36 AM Dan Carroll has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 77 by Dan Carroll, posted 01-31-2005 11:27 PM Syamsu has not replied
 Message 78 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 02-01-2005 12:22 AM Syamsu has replied

  
Dan Carroll
Inactive Member


Message 77 of 236 (182182)
01-31-2005 11:27 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by Syamsu
01-31-2005 10:07 PM


So I think a movement to force evolutionary psychologists to study choice, (choice as a matter of things going one way or another), and not just pay meaningless lipservice to the concept of choice, would be very popular in academics.
I love the idea of something so popular that you have to force people into it.
I also love the idea of forcing people to think a certain way. It's absolutely precious.
Your reply is just meaningless characterassassination, you have no point. Neither is Wounded King's post worth considering, when he asks why I think unity is a bad wordchoice, when I told him why in the post he was replying to.
Ut! He's got us, WK! He said we were not worth considering! That makes it true!
You keep poking me, and that's all.
Aaaaaand... the last horse finally crosses the finish line.

"Egos drone and pose alone, Like black balloons, all banged and blown
On a backwards river, infidels shiver In the stench of belief
And tell my mama I'm a hundred years late
I'm over the rails and out of the race
The crippled psalms of an age that won't thaw ringing in my ears"
-Beck

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by Syamsu, posted 01-31-2005 10:07 PM Syamsu has not replied

  
Parsimonious_Razor
Inactive Member


Message 78 of 236 (182184)
02-01-2005 12:22 AM
Reply to: Message 76 by Syamsu
01-31-2005 10:07 PM


The criticism of evolutionary psychology rarely rest on science and is inundated with massive ideological barriers. The most vocal critics are all loudly support neo-Marxism and argue off of those grounds. Your criticism of "things going one way or another" is just in your mind, not in the field. There is not some vast army of supporters for your concept. Don't get too carried away.
Is it possible for you to show me how your ideas would change a concept in evolutionary psychology? Let’s take a real simple example: people develop negative conditioning MUCH quicker to threats that were present in our EEA rather than novel threats. So snakes quicker than guns. This is a simple predication. Now how would your ideas alter this picture? I am failing to see how anything you have said, even if we say okay fine, alters the field in anyway.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by Syamsu, posted 01-31-2005 10:07 PM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 79 by Syamsu, posted 02-01-2005 3:55 AM Parsimonious_Razor has replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 79 of 236 (182205)
02-01-2005 3:55 AM
Reply to: Message 78 by Parsimonious_Razor
02-01-2005 12:22 AM


Largely marxists have a vested interest in seeing the environment predetermine human affairs. So I guess they would naturally oppose evolutionary psychology. Christians, religious people, have a vested interest against any predetermination in human affairs, because that would make irrellevant the need to pray to God in making a difficult decision.
But I think the main stream of opposition would be that it is clear that the field of evolutionary psychology has by a namechange, illegitemately detatched itself from the history of social darwinism / evolutionism in the holocaust. By the involvement in the ideological basis for the holocaust it is shown that the study of choice is a neccessity to counterbalance the stimulating effect evolutionary psychology has on racism / evolutionism etc.
It's al just rubbish that ideological influence is not talked about among "evolutionary psychologists" as an area of concern. The famous Daniel Lehrman in criticizing Konrad Lorenz brought up Lorenz's link to Nazism. Quite legitimately so, as later research also indicated, Lorenz's work was prejudiced towards nazilike ideas.
Most every finding in evolutionary psychology would be qualified by an understanding of choice. There would certainly never be any emotion posited which has no free will in it. My guess is, any cursory understanding of choice, would make evolutionary psychology be much neglected, if it is shown that you can make complex interesting models of uncertainty stacked on uncertainty, stacked on uncertainty. A quivering fragile tower of uncertainties based on well nothing whatsoever actually. That is more like emotion is.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 02-01-2005 12:22 AM Parsimonious_Razor has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 80 by Wounded King, posted 02-01-2005 4:11 AM Syamsu has replied
 Message 83 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 02-01-2005 12:53 PM Syamsu has replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 80 of 236 (182207)
02-01-2005 4:11 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by Syamsu
02-01-2005 3:55 AM


A quivering fragile tower of uncertainties based on well nothing whatsoever actually.
Now, what does that remind me of? Ah yes, your style of argument.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by Syamsu, posted 02-01-2005 3:55 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 81 by Syamsu, posted 02-01-2005 8:31 AM Wounded King has replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 81 of 236 (182247)
02-01-2005 8:31 AM
Reply to: Message 80 by Wounded King
02-01-2005 4:11 AM


Do you think Parsimonious Razor ever heared of a "probability reaching unity" as a matter of describing the point where something goes one way in stead of another?
Your ridiculing is at the expense of understanding choice, which you completely deny the existence of by your "scientific" understanding.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 80 by Wounded King, posted 02-01-2005 4:11 AM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 89 by Wounded King, posted 02-02-2005 1:37 AM Syamsu has replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 82 of 236 (182303)
02-01-2005 11:15 AM


We the students, do hereby declare that:
- because social darwinism, the predeccessor of evolutionary psychology, was an ideological force behind the holocaust
- because of concern over radical application of evolutionary science in countries such as China, or by more independent selfhelp guru's in Western countries
That evolutionary psychology should develop an understanding of choice, besides their understanding of any mechanism, so to stop science from stimulating various ideologies against human freedom.
For those who need evidence of the reality and power of choice to make things turn out one way in stead of another, we offer the sight of empty classrooms and empty campuses, of students on STRIKE.
We the subjects of study in evolutionary psychology, do hereby declare that none shall study us without abiding respect for our ability to choose. Now we choose to STRIKE! Let this be a decisive moment in student history, where things turned towards freedom, in stead of towards the ideological madness we've seen many times before.
sign please
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 02-01-2005 12:55 PM Syamsu has not replied

  
Parsimonious_Razor
Inactive Member


Message 83 of 236 (182339)
02-01-2005 12:53 PM
Reply to: Message 79 by Syamsu
02-01-2005 3:55 AM


Enough platitudes.
How would your "ideas" change a single theory of evolutionary psychology? I gave you an easy specific example. Can you give ANY specifics at all? ANYTHING at all other than pedantic speeches?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by Syamsu, posted 02-01-2005 3:55 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 87 by Syamsu, posted 02-01-2005 9:13 PM Parsimonious_Razor has not replied

  
Parsimonious_Razor
Inactive Member


Message 84 of 236 (182340)
02-01-2005 12:55 PM
Reply to: Message 82 by Syamsu
02-01-2005 11:15 AM


Right, like this is going to happen.
Good luck though.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by Syamsu, posted 02-01-2005 11:15 AM Syamsu has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 85 by Silent H, posted 02-01-2005 6:42 PM Parsimonious_Razor has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 85 of 236 (182418)
02-01-2005 6:42 PM
Reply to: Message 84 by Parsimonious_Razor
02-01-2005 12:55 PM


I was actually avoiding this thread as it looked to be a syamsu hates evilution topic.
However my gf is in psych and I happened upon an article on evolutionary psychology, and came away quite unimpressed. Indeed it felt to me like a quasi-religious impression of evolution as justification for behaviors.
I am a skeptic at heart and most of the commentary for why this "new paradigm" was necessary for psych, seemed more emotional than science based.
Anyhow I will avoid specifics at this point. What I wanted to say is that this paper kind of gave me an incentive to check the thread out.
I am glad to see that an evo-psych person is in the thread as I would like to ask some questions regarding problems that I have with it... at least what I saw as being described as the "new paradigm".
Let me know if you are interested in continuing with this thread or if you are burnt out at this point from banging your head against one of EvC's brick walls.
I promise I have a grounding in science (including some psych as part of my sociology background) and will not be using a marxist approach to criticizing evo-psych. In fact I have no idea how I would begin to do that.
I'd lay out some issues right now but it is almost 1am and I should be in bed already. If you are open to more discussion/defense of evo-psych I'll write more tomorrow.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 84 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 02-01-2005 12:55 PM Parsimonious_Razor has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 86 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 02-01-2005 7:54 PM Silent H has replied
 Message 88 by Syamsu, posted 02-01-2005 9:14 PM Silent H has replied

  
Parsimonious_Razor
Inactive Member


Message 86 of 236 (182432)
02-01-2005 7:54 PM
Reply to: Message 85 by Silent H
02-01-2005 6:42 PM


Sure, maybe it would be better to start a new thread on the topic? Let me know.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 85 by Silent H, posted 02-01-2005 6:42 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 102 by Silent H, posted 02-02-2005 4:17 PM Parsimonious_Razor has replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 87 of 236 (182439)
02-01-2005 9:13 PM
Reply to: Message 83 by Parsimonious_Razor
02-01-2005 12:53 PM


As before, the result of research into decision would be for instance that evopsych's would stop positing emotions as if they were machine-mechanisms without free will. Why did you ignore that?
As before, sociobiology was oppressed and suppressed in earlier days. Don't assume that the same thing can't happen to evolutionary psychology. Why did you ignore that?
Well maybe it will be surpressed by the rhetoric of marxism again, in stead of by the rhetoric of democracy as I set out.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 83 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 02-01-2005 12:53 PM Parsimonious_Razor has not replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 88 of 236 (182440)
02-01-2005 9:14 PM
Reply to: Message 85 by Silent H
02-01-2005 6:42 PM


It's unlikely you would end up anywhere meaningful when you ignore the issues of evolution theory ending up stimulating ideology of genocide, and the issue of neglect of choice, free will.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 85 by Silent H, posted 02-01-2005 6:42 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 90 by Silent H, posted 02-02-2005 4:47 AM Syamsu has not replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 89 of 236 (182463)
02-02-2005 1:37 AM
Reply to: Message 81 by Syamsu
02-01-2005 8:31 AM


Do you think Parsimonious Razor ever heared of a "probability reaching unity" as a matter of describing the point where something goes one way in stead of another?
I don't know, why don't you ask him? I would have thought so, there must be quite a bit of stats involved in evo-psych.
Your ridiculing is at the expense of understanding choice, which you completely deny the existence of by your "scientific" understanding.
Um, no. I have never denied the existence of choice, I have only denied that we know for sure that 'real' choice exists, I have never denied the existence of the experience of choice.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 81 by Syamsu, posted 02-01-2005 8:31 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 91 by Syamsu, posted 02-02-2005 5:10 AM Wounded King has replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 90 of 236 (182486)
02-02-2005 4:47 AM
Reply to: Message 88 by Syamsu
02-01-2005 9:14 PM


It's unlikely you would end up anywhere meaningful when you ignore the issues of evolution theory ending up stimulating ideology of genocide, and the issue of neglect of choice, free will.
Oh, I agree. I have addressed such issues as have many others. It is just that I have discovered I do not end up anywhere meaningful when discussing topics with you and so am ignoring you.
There are times when you have very insightful and lucid commentary and I enjoy reading those few and far between posts, for the most part however (and definitely when trying to have a meaningful debate) your posts reduce to the inciteful and lurid.
Improve your game and I will start dealing with your posts again.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 88 by Syamsu, posted 02-01-2005 9:14 PM Syamsu has not replied

  
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