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Author Topic:   The third rampage of evolutionism: evolutionary pscyhology
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 151 of 236 (183529)
02-06-2005 2:25 PM
Reply to: Message 149 by Parsimonious_Razor
02-06-2005 2:09 PM


If Dawkins proposes everyone is completely selfish he is wrong.
Which, of course, anyone who actually read the book - or the follow-on "The Extended Phenotype" (which is a much better book, IMO) - agrees is NOT what Dawkins is saying. The unfounded opinions of those who have NOT read the book are irrelevant and immaterial. As I'm sure you're discovering...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 149 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 02-06-2005 2:09 PM Parsimonious_Razor has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 152 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 02-06-2005 2:32 PM Quetzal has replied
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Parsimonious_Razor
Inactive Member


Message 152 of 236 (183531)
02-06-2005 2:32 PM
Reply to: Message 151 by Quetzal
02-06-2005 2:25 PM


quote:
- agrees is NOT what Dawkins is saying.
Oh I agree its defiantly not what he is saying. My point was that even if we, for the hell of it, grant Syamsu all of his points. That evo psych ignores "choice" that Dawkin’s believes everyone is selfish, and that us practitioners of evo psych have an evangelical zeal.................none of this adds up to a new wave of concentration camps..

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 153 of 236 (183534)
02-06-2005 2:42 PM
Reply to: Message 139 by Parsimonious_Razor
02-06-2005 3:42 AM


I hope this helps.
Because "evolutionary psychology" is a 'higher' level than simple individual organismic survival (of course this might be population wise argued) it matters less how selfish the genes are than Gould's point, "If a gene increases in copy number within a genome by duplication and lateral spread( gene selection in the genuine sense), phenotypes of organisms may or may not be affected. But selection on higher-level individuals alwayssorts lower-level individuals within. If ugly organism outcompete beautiful conspecifics..."
(my comments only reply to the issue of a continual hierarchy not a discontinuous more, those are subect to any criticism) Selfishness attempts nonininclusion. There could be some information on that but I have not seen it nor the risk it poses.

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


Message 154 of 236 (183582)
02-06-2005 6:30 PM
Reply to: Message 146 by Parsimonious_Razor
02-06-2005 1:34 PM


Re: less rampage but still evo-psych issues
I agree there are areas of the brain that more plastic, empty disk, blank slate, ect. But only part of the brain is, and just how much of our conscious experience and (more importantly) our behavior is governed by interactions taking place solely with in this area is, in my opinion, highly overstated.
It is not necessary for behavior to take place solely within those areas to negate any real effect that evolution plays, or... more importantly for scientific investigation... throw off our ability to detect hardware vs software driven PMs using appeals to commonality of PM in population correlated to a speculative environmental advantage.
It will take a greater neural description of what are hard and which are plastic areas of the brain and what specific PMs are found in those regions.
To be honest, my interest in incest is very limited, and I have only dealt with a small portion of the literature
Well I didn't choose it because it was of interest, only that it was the top example paper they had at the website for the center for EP. I do not know more than the single paper they have listed there. I would want to discuss only that paper as an example of EP methodology for discussion.
However I will start with an analysis of a couple of the WHR papers you cited. I have read two already and will have a post dissecting them tomorrow or Tuesday. As it turns out I found them as flawed as the incest/morality study so they will be good examples.
In the mean time I want to address the counterarguments you have raised.
There are specific areas of the brain used for specific functions, everyone has roughly the same topographic map of brain area to brain function. Infants are born with a wide variety of skills that they couldn't have had time to learn such as facial recognition processing. And many of these things carry on into adult hood.
The fact that areas of the brain are specified for certain function does not change the lack of knowledge we have regarding hardware to software. Neither would the fact that damage to areas can wipe out specific functions permanently (so that plasticity of empty disk areas are not completely usable for all tasks).
All that baby PMs indicate is what I have already granted, which is that there can be hardwired PMs. What is unknown is whether anything outside of infant reactions are hardwired, or whether (another possibility) some initially hardwired PMs become disabled and replaced by software according to cues (outside stimulus or growth stages). The fact that a PM may be shared by adult and infant does not mean a change has not taken place.
Damage to the brain may prove that certain empty disk areas are assigned for certain tasks, but does not undercut the fact that software may be written and run in those functional areas.
Preference for symmetrical faces over unsymmetrical faces are found with in minutes of birth
This seems impossible since the eyesight of children is not good within hours (and I believe days) of birth, can you please give me cites for this. As far as preference for symmetrical faces, I have always wondered at the overspecificity brought to bear on this topic (I have seen shows on this though it was not discussed as EP).
It appears to me that most people have a preference for symmetry in general and so the fact that that would carry over into facial preference seems only logical. The fact that we like symmetry may also just be a preference for things which would be easier for our minds to process and make sense of. A nonsymmetric image is distorting an uncomfortable to view, and I would have to say the same goes for a face.
Is this not a logical explanation?
I think if you can show functionally specific adaptations you know the selective force behind it. Whatever something is SPECIFICALLY designed to address is the selective force that shaped it.
Do you not realize that that is a circular argument?
What one must ask is if a PM is genetic in origin, and if so can we trace it to the specific species in which it originated, and if so which environmental factor helped it stand as an advantage.
What you are doing is assuming that each and every PM is the result of genetic mutation and selected for by an advantage, and so whatever logically possible advantage a PM might serve becomes a logical probability for being the reason for the PM. Circular.
Evolutionary theory allows for features to appear and even change for absolutely no reason whatsoever, the main thing being that it is not a disadvantage to reproduction. How can we know that a plausible correlation between a PM and an advantage we can see is nothing more than a coincidence? Indeed how can we know it did not appear earlier or later due to different conditions altogether and has hung on because it doesn't play a disadvantage though it produces a PM effect we can correlate to something else?
I am having a very hard time with interpreting popularity in population as a PMs being hardwired, and interpreting logically possible advantage in a speculative environment as being a likely evolutionary selection mechanism.
There are many things people assess when looking at mates. Not just WHR, I am not saying that it is only WHR.
Actually I do understand this, I was simply trying to point out culturally determined criteria which can override whr (as well as any other inate) preference filters.
So far almost all of the EP material I have read have dismissed or drastically downplayed the significance of cultural pressures on forming PMs. Instead they suggest that at best it is cultures reinterpreting PMs. Of course how they determine this?
And in any case what is the difference between saying this is human nature or this is human nature plus cultural reinterpretation? In the end doesn't that say that what we see as a human being and that beings PMs are culturally derived? It seems to matter little whether the culture wrote on an entirely blank slate or reworked a not so blank slate.
But homosexual men still will say a women with a smaller WHR is more attractive than a women with a larger WHR.
I did not see this borne out in the papers you cited (maybe it was in the third). But I will get to those in the next post.
If you can find a whole culture that values relatively LARGER WHR (not just body fat percentage but the actual WHR) that’s a problem for the theory. An individual that doesn't isn't.
I don't think you are understanding the weight of my argument. There are whole cultures of people that have in the past and now still do prefer larger WHR. You may call them a subculture, or cultural fad, but they exist.
But there is more to the problem than simply the existence of subcultures. If your theory is that preferences are genetic in origin, then any deviation must be genetic in origin as well. Thus whoever mates with a selection difference should potentially pass it on in mathematically calculable ways.
It seems to me that would be a much more valuable way for EP to start staking a claim. Find those that would have deviant PMs, then track whether offspring also carry those deviant PMs, especially if the offspring were raised outside of the influence of the parents, or better yet the culture (or subculture) of their parents.
This is another part of the problem I have with EP, it suggests deviant PMs, or should I say the variation of PMs we see, are mainly genetic mutation in origin. That seems highly unlikely given that many PMs seem to manifest themselves given exposure to cultures or environmental experiences, rather than from birth.
You do not have to address whr specifically as I will deal with that 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 146 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 02-06-2005 1:34 PM Parsimonious_Razor has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 160 by contracycle, posted 02-07-2005 10:01 AM Silent H has replied
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Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 155 of 236 (183599)
02-06-2005 9:19 PM
Reply to: Message 152 by Parsimonious_Razor
02-06-2005 2:32 PM


Heh. Many of us never respond to Syamasu anymore. You will NEVER get a straight answer nor any closure from a discussion with him. People like Dan and Mammuthus only do it out of some perverse sense of humor.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 156 of 236 (183613)
02-06-2005 10:59 PM
Reply to: Message 151 by Quetzal
02-06-2005 2:25 PM


But that people are completely selfish is not what I reflected Dawkins as saying. It is of course very hypocritical that those who urge people to read books, don't actually read the posts they are replying to.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 157 of 236 (183645)
02-07-2005 6:50 AM
Reply to: Message 132 by Syamsu
02-04-2005 10:19 PM


OK Syamsu, an awful lot of assertions there and, stunningly enough, absoloutely nothing to back them up.
What I say about "unities" not communicating very well for a point where something goes one way in stead of another is reasonable by any standard.
Says you, but since you haven't actually provided any justification, other than its not fitting your own secret interpretation perhaps, it isn't reasonable by my personal subjective standard.
Nobody here understands it in relation to things going one way or another, which includes you, nobody here knows to use it, while it is supposedly a fundamental principle like "cause and effect".
What is the basis for this statement? Is it simply the fact that no one else has commented on it at all? If so then you are still scraping along the bottom of the barrel in terms of evidence. What evidence do you have of my lack of understanding other than your own inability to comprehend what I am saying?
Yet you go on, and on, and on, pretending that decision is perfectly well handled in science, that everybody understands it, except me because I never studied probabilities. Mere obstinacy.
And yet you never show any indication of understanding it and science continues along quite happily incorporating probabilities at a variety of different levels including the study of evolution.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 132 by Syamsu, posted 02-04-2005 10:19 PM Syamsu has replied

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


Message 158 of 236 (183661)
02-07-2005 8:44 AM
Reply to: Message 157 by Wounded King
02-07-2005 6:50 AM


Quite happily without any decision of any magnitude in billions of years of history of evolution. So that Gould must urge his fellow evolutionists to restore the historical perspective, so that I read some article talking about stubborness of evolutionists in accepting probabilities, all the time assuring other scientists that they are not neccesarily saying things could have turned out one way or another when they use probabilities.
It would be credible if you can reference some paper talking about any "unity" being reached, of some magnitude. Now you are just portraying the happiness of the totally ignorant. Things are indeed much more simple when you ignore decision, just positing cause and effect mechanisms. It just doesn't reflect reality very well, especially when describing human beings.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

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Dan Carroll
Inactive Member


Message 159 of 236 (183669)
02-07-2005 9:24 AM
Reply to: Message 155 by Quetzal
02-06-2005 9:19 PM


People like Dan and Mammuthus only do it out of some perverse sense of humor.
Just because it gives me an erection doesn't mean it's perverse.

"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:
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contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 160 of 236 (183672)
02-07-2005 10:01 AM
Reply to: Message 154 by Silent H
02-06-2005 6:30 PM


Re: less rampage but still evo-psych issues
quote:
Damage to the brain may prove that certain empty disk areas are assigned for certain tasks, but does not undercut the fact that software may be written and run in those functional areas.
Actually, good point there. If a routine’s algorithm is stored in location A, but location A is not accessible, the routine cannot be called. Now, the breakdown could be in the storage medium, or in the communication lines, but the system calling the routine would probably not be able to determine which.
IOW, showing that a loss of function accords directly with destruction of the brain part does not tell us why that happens. It could be because the routine is hard-WIRED at that point, but it might also be because the system is hard-CODED to look for the routine at that address.
quote:
The fact that we like symmetry may also just be a preference for things which would be easier for our minds to process and make sense of. A nonsymmetric image is distorting an uncomfortable to view, and I would have to say the same goes for a face. Is this not a logical explanation?
Actually no, IMO. That is, the question why is symmetry easier/better remains unanswered. If asymmetric things were inherently discomforting, then we would never be happy around trees, and yet most people find them comforting. This is actually exactly the kind of thing that I would hope such a discipline as EP would address.
In regards of a notional adaptation for fear of snakes, for example how does the brain detect and determine snake-ness in the first place? It seems dubious to me to speculate on what a given feature is FOR before you know how that feature works.
quote:
So far almost all of the EP material I have read have dismissed or drastically downplayed the significance of cultural pressures on forming PMs. Instead they suggest that at best it is cultures reinterpreting PMs. Of course how they determine this?
Indeed, and hence some audiences detect a reactionary subtext.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 154 by Silent H, posted 02-06-2005 6:30 PM Silent H has replied

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


Message 161 of 236 (183697)
02-07-2005 11:37 AM
Reply to: Message 160 by contracycle
02-07-2005 10:01 AM


Re: less rampage but still evo-psych issues
Actually no, IMO. That is, the question why is symmetry easier/better remains unanswered. If asymmetric things were inherently discomforting, then we would never be happy around trees, and yet most people find them comforting. This is actually exactly the kind of thing that I would hope such a discipline as EP would address.
I think you were missing my point. The idea was about visual preference. The statement is that we can measure "beauty" by looking at symmetry in faces.
Well that does not discount that what the brain is doing is not just face specific or beauty specific, but judgement of beauty stems from a desire or greater ease of processing of symmetrical imagery by the brain. Thus we are not talking about a beauty PM, but rather an image processing routine which has the side effect of influencing our judgement of beauty (among other things).
That would remove odd theories such as symmetrical faces are an indication of greater X which results in better child bearing probability and so that was reinforced.
As far as liking how trees look, I am unsure how one would judge a tree more beautiful than another but my guess is using imagery the more symmetrical trees will be judged more beautiful, though I admit there are other factors which could take precedence like color or texture or relation to other environmental objects.
If you are talking about liking trees in general, then that is a completely different subject altogether. There are many other factors than visual cues which influence preference in actually enjoying a thing. For purposes of this discussion it was simple visual cue "programming".
But the latter also raises an interesting counter to the whole whr study. Humans base their mating on more than just visual cues and as it is humans are seen in many more poses and directions than the few directions seen in the cards. It seems to me the most they got, if they even got that, was a sign of what prevalent attitudes there are for determining attractiveness based on 2-d images. I

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)

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Parsimonious_Razor
Inactive Member


Message 162 of 236 (183758)
02-07-2005 3:53 PM
Reply to: Message 154 by Silent H
02-06-2005 6:30 PM


Re: less rampage but still evo-psych issues
Honestly, I feel like all we are really doing is waxing philosophical. The lack of evidence you are discussing serves as lack of evidence for your arguments as well. The fact that we do not know the exact relationship between hardwired and software and genes and traits does not prove your position any more than mine. Basically at this level of discussion my arguments are not going to change much.
Issue-We don’t know the relationship between hardware and software
Evolutionary psychology says we don’t have to. Instead lets go out and LOOK for it and see what we find, evolutionary psychology uses a top-down theoretical method, not a bottom-up. The bottom-up development is lacking in technology to really get going, in the mean time lets instead ask what we should find and see if we can find.
Issue-How do you know it is an adaptation and not some other thing (exaptation, spandrel, cultural factor)
This is a problem for the entire field of evolution, not just evolutionary psychology. We just don’t know for sure how to do this yet. Is bi-pedialism an adaptation? We think so, but we can’t prove it. We are developing ideas that might help us sift out adaptations from other environments, such as universality, ease of development, path ways of development, optimality, special design and specified function, and parsimony. These are used to identify adaptations of all kinds, evolutionary psychology just applies them to behavioral models.
Issue-You can not know the selective environment in which something developed
Again, this is a problem for the entire field of evolution. We can not know this for any adaptation, but we can take educated guesses and then derive predictions, and see if they pan out. This gets us CLOSER to what the selective pressures were. Evolutionary psychology does this the same way.
In the end, the proof is in the pudding, or the research that comes out of a field Does it provide fruitful areas of research, does it provide falsifiable predictions, are the predictions accurate, and does it expand the body of knowledge. I think the answer is yes to all of these.
This is the area I want to explore, lets get down to the nitty gritty and see what going on in the research. I would like to see what issues you have with the WHR studies so far. There are hundreds of more where those came from, and I think they might address a lot of your issues (such as you mentioned all it shows is assement of 2-dimensional figures) but there are lots of studies showing this in the 3d world as well.
So I am curious to see your analysis of the WHR problem.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 154 by Silent H, posted 02-06-2005 6:30 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 163 by Silent H, posted 02-07-2005 6:02 PM Parsimonious_Razor has replied

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


Message 163 of 236 (183795)
02-07-2005 6:02 PM
Reply to: Message 162 by Parsimonious_Razor
02-07-2005 3:53 PM


Re: less rampage but still evo-psych issues
So I am curious to see your analysis of the WHR problem.
I was waiting for us to iron out the theoretical end of EP, before moving into specific example studies to look at methodology.
I am ready to move into that. As I said I have read the incest/morality paper and two of your whr cites. I just do not know if this will be useful to talk about if we have background issues that will keep cropping up.
For me some of the theoreticals we are discussing have a direct impact on methodology.
I will address the points you made in this latest post here. If you are hesitant to discuss them further, I will address the whr studies, though like I said I have a feeling some of the same issues will end up coming back to haunt us.
One thing before I do, you just suggested there are more studies than the ones you cited. I hope these are the best representative studies. If not, then please get me cites to the very best. I do not want to be addressing weak studies, only to end up hearing "okay, well there are better ones".
1.Issue-We don’t know the relationship between hardware and software
Evolutionary psychology says we don’t have to. Instead lets go out and LOOK for it and see what we find, evolutionary psychology uses a top-down theoretical method, not a bottom-up. The bottom-up development is lacking in technology to really get going, in the mean time lets instead ask what we should find and see if we can find.
That has got to be the worst sell job I have ever heard for any theory. EP cannot simply say we don't have to. The fact that we don't have the technology to address the subject accurately at this point in time does not grant EP to turn scientific method on its head and just "look to see what we find".
This goes double when in order to see what you can find you must assume that other disciplines must be wrong or can be dismissed.
I am now interested, what do you see as a difference between this and ID, besides it's end goals? It appears the methodology is the same.
2. Issue-How do you know it is an adaptation and not some other thing (exaptation, spandrel, cultural factor)
This is a problem for the entire field of evolution, not just evolutionary psychology.
I have already been through this and do not feel like you have provided a good enough answer. Unlike all other physical traits (except perhaps the lymphatic system) the brain adapts to the environment it currently is experiencing, including the ability to theorize and so effect itself through introspection. While it is unknown how many decision routines are hardwired, it is clearly known that there must be some.
Without an accurate distinction between what is adapted to current environment, and what is inherited through evolution, connecting correlated "popular" PMs with evolution is speculative, and made worse by speculating on possible environmental factors they were keyed for.
I think I deserve a better answer on how EP addresses the possibility of adaptive vs evolved areas. Percentages, correlation, and speculation do not seem to be enough.
3. Issue-You can not know the selective environment in which something developed
Again, this is a problem for the entire field of evolution. We can not know this for any adaptation, but we can take educated guesses and then derive predictions, and see if they pan out. This gets us CLOSER to what the selective pressures were.
EP is making quite a bit different type predictions than EBio. And I will repeat that PMs are known to adapt within the environment, which make them different than physical features.
We can look at the horse and see changes in hooves or height over time. Same for the physical human form. While some of it may very well be speculative, we have a firmer physical trail to follow. This is almost entirely missing with EP.
I do agree that some dino hunters are a bit goofy launching into speculations on exactly what lifestyles certain animals had, but even this carries a bit more physical evidence (like nests and things).
In the end, the proof is in the pudding, or the research that comes out of a field Does it provide fruitful areas of research, does it provide falsifiable predictions, are the predictions accurate, and does it expand the body of knowledge.
Just to let you know, the actual phrase is "the proof is in the tasting of the pudding". That was mentioned in a pet peeves thread at EvC.
My problem is that when you start by saying that we don't have the technology yet so lets start making top-down predictions instead, you have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. If we don't have the technology yet then why not work on advancing the technology, rather than dropping straightforward methodology just so you can start in on the theory now?
Anyone can make predictions, find correlations, and so claim they have advanced knowledge. Numerology is filled with this. Science, to me, demands a bit more meat on the skeleton when you decide to say knowledge has been advanced.
Why does popularity within a population rule out software? How does correlation to a predicted advantage actually mean causation?
Okay, so I'd like a bit better explanations for how EP works past the issues it faces, rather than hearing "same for those guys", or "we say we don't have to".
If you have nothing else, and are sticking with the above, then let me know if the cites provided were the best whr study examples. If not, then get me the best ones.

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 162 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 02-07-2005 3:53 PM Parsimonious_Razor has replied

Replies to this message:
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Parsimonious_Razor
Inactive Member


Message 164 of 236 (183825)
02-07-2005 9:23 PM
Reply to: Message 163 by Silent H
02-07-2005 6:02 PM


Re: less rampage but still evo-psych issues
quote:
One thing before I do, you just suggested there are more studies than the ones you cited. I hope these are the best representative studies. If not, then please get me cites to the very best. I do not want to be addressing weak studies, only to end up hearing "okay, well there are better ones".
The references were the works that defined the area of study. They provide the back drop. There are newer studies that BUILD upon the older studies. There have been other studies that tried to expand and address issue with them, but they are simple expansions of these studies. The foundation is in those studies. So I thought it would be of more value to see these studies then a more specific study that only addressed a peripheral issue of WHR. If you have points that have been raised before, I will wind up citing more research that has tried to address these points. It’s not to say these are bad, but they didn't address every issue that has come up since. If you come to me with your criticisms of the papers, I can then try and find, what I think are the best responses to it, or if there aren't why perhaps the criticisms are not valid. The other point is that you have to show many different angles to establish the preference as adaptive, and it takes separate studies to often do that. So it is more the proponderous of evidence that ultimately shapes how the field views WHR. My aim was background, and I guess we can go from there. That’s my reasoning behind those studies, not that they are the best, or most complete, but I think they are the necessary starting points.
quote:
That has got to be the worst sell job I have ever heard for any theory. EP cannot simply say we don't have to. The fact that we don't have the technology to address the subject accurately at this point in time does not grant EP to turn scientific method on its head and just "look to see what we find".
This goes double when in order to see what you can find you must assume that other disciplines must be wrong or can be dismissed.
You have failed to show me why you have to know exactly the hardware vs. software issues to look for hardwired domain specific functions. The brain is obviously not a complete blank slate; there are obviously some hardwired functions. How important are these to how we think? Well we can begin to answer this question with out knowing at a neuronal level how exactly things work. That’s like saying we have to know the exact muscular contraction sequence in the esophagus before we can say that the evolved purpose of the esophagus is to swallow food.
quote:
I have already been through this and do not feel like you have provided a good enough answer. Unlike all other physical traits (except perhaps the lymphatic system) the brain adapts to the environment it currently is experiencing, including the ability to theorize and so effect itself through introspection. While it is unknown how many decision routines are hardwired, it is clearly known that there must be some.
You seem to be working on the assumption that a lack of known evidence should be treated as favoring more of a cognitive general theory. The same lack of evidence you decree for not being able to show at a neuronal level hardwired brain functions, means that you can not just make a claim that the brain can completely adapt to novel environments and over come all these innate functions through introspection. You have no evidence that this is the case. So you can not assume it as a response. EVERY single complex trait we have emerges from an interaction between the environment, genes and ontological development. Muscles, ligaments, veins, all these things adapt and respond to environmental cues. The ability to adapt to these environments is an adaptation in itself. But evolution defines the boundaries of adaptation. We have constraints, muscles can adapt to load bearing stresses over time, because of evolution, but also because of evolution they can only adapt to so much. I don’t see why this statement is so different from saying the brain is a complex organ shaped by natural selection, the ability to respond to novel environments is an adaptation of the brain, but selection pressures constrain just how adaptive the brain can be. People can like different body fat percentages, but will never prefer a WHR of 1.5 over .7. Adaptation and constraint. People can like different aged women, but will not prefer non-reproductively viable women to reproductively viable women (a 20 year old will be preferred over a 70 year old). Adaptation with constraint. People may prefer different facial hair, facial features, ect. But will prefer traits that signal higher secondary hormonal levels. Because people who preferred, sick, pregnant or 70 year old women did not leave their genes behind.
The brain is not some grand organ that adapts completely to its environment. If that was true, we wouldn’t have nearly the number of mal adaptive traits that we do. One of the central focus areas for some researchers is explaining maladaptive traits in novel environments as being left over from a time in which the trait developed. The brain can not optimize itself in any environment. It is constrained.
I don’t know what to tell you. You link evolutionary psychology to the ID movement, to numerology and a many other areas of pseudo science. I see no valid comparison here. It uses operationalized methods and definitions that you seem to accept in somatic phenotypes but then declare invalid when dealing with the mind. You declare them invalid because we do not have fossilized remains of behavior and because you assume the brain is nearly infinitely adaptable to its environment. I see no problem with the fossilization issue, and its unsolvable, I think the evidence points to the brain not being infinitely adaptable.
Evolutionary psychology has demonstrated a lot of fascinating aspects of human psychology. That’s the key point, evolutionary psychology has a methodology that it has created for exploring these issues from a more top-down design. You say the top-down method is invalid, and approach it from a philosophical angle. If you want to get into that end of it we can have a lovely debate on the Computational Theory of Mind and work from Kant to Marr. But that’s not what this is about. I want to try addressing the science. That’s the whole point, the methodology, like all things is rooted in philosophy, but the question is, does it work. That’s why I think the empirical evidence that has been published is the place to look. If we are finding legitimate adaptations in people, the methodology seems to be working.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 163 by Silent H, posted 02-07-2005 6:02 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 167 by Silent H, posted 02-08-2005 8:45 AM Parsimonious_Razor has not replied

  
contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 165 of 236 (183884)
02-08-2005 6:23 AM


I think the above post shows exactly why the question of hardware versus software must be addressed. If you say that the brain may contain old adaptations to circumstances that no longer apply, this appears to assume that the initial adaptation was a physical change, and that this is irreversible. But as I tried to point out by raising the distinctionn between something being hard WIRED and something being hard CODED, this need not be true.
Actually contemplating this has just made me wonder something about junk DNA - could it be compressed data? Compression and encryption are nearly the same thing; I could imagine the brain of a young child "unpacking" data from the junk DNA and compiling it in one part of the brain and then implementing it as a routine in another. Interesting.
Another concern arises from WHR scenario. I think its valid to say that the WHR is a marker of attractiveness, but is that the whole story? That is, for example, do the hormonal changes that occur in later life change the significance of this observation? One of the first attacks on EvoPsych I came across was titled something like "EP is just an excuse for old men in macs to lust after young hotties". This arose from seeing arguments surrounding the WHR as being universal normative claims. But one would think, if pair-bonding is a human strategy, that there must also be some evolutionary mechanism to make this stick; surely there should be some mechanism to mitigate the attractiveness of a young hottie in favour of the mother of your children, whom you are both still raising.
I do think the top down approach has the same danger that it always has, starting with a conclusion and searching for evidence to support it. And the danger, as always, is that if the assumptions underlying the conclusion are mistaken, the observations will still be interpreted in that light. It does seem to me as if the "agenda" of this discipline is to contradict ideas of cultural relativity and instead to essentially validate the status quo as normal and natural and inevitable.
I'm a little unclear as to what findings Razor is referring to when arguing the utility of the research - I though those were the very findings that Holmes was attacking as not really findings at all. What exactly are the successes of EP to date?

Replies to this message:
 Message 166 by Silent H, posted 02-08-2005 8:18 AM contracycle has not replied
 Message 171 by Brad McFall, posted 02-12-2005 11:45 AM contracycle has not replied

  
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