Laws of Attraction: The seduction of Evolutionary Psychology?

But, indeed, that's what you're being given, and what you're rejecting. The physical entities are human beings, who have genes and the motivation to pass on those genes; in order to do so they have to take the risk of combining those genes with the genes of another human being, in such a way that another's bad genes could extinguish the individual's good genes. Those humans are organisms with many infuences on their behavior, not all of which are conscious, and many of which are the result of protein hormones that are synthesized genetically.Correlation between behavior or attraction and genetic advantage would seem to me to be conclusive in regards to substantiating a genetic, evolved basis for disposition to that behavior. The subsequent research would not be a matter of if the behavior represents a gene that was selected for, but what genes produce what hormones to dispose the behavior.Gregor Mendel is recognized as the very father of genetics without so much as having ever looked at a karyotype. Simple mathematics and observations performed on the pheynotype of pea plants were all that was required to substantiate the genetic inheritance of flower color, pea and pod shape, and incidence of dwarfism. I don't see why any more is required here for the same level of conclusion. Indeed, at this point, the onus is on opponents such as yourself to substantiate your position that, indeed, there is no sexual selection pressure for the "smell of symmetry" and that the correlation is either random chance or a hidden third factor. The methodologies of these papers don't seem any different than those of papers I've known you to present as evidence in the past so attacking them from that basis opens you to the charges of double standard that you're referring to, here.

And how would we do that, exactly? How do we examine the functioning of a living brain? Invasive surgery to introduce electrodes? Positron emission tomography only tells us where the blood is going, not necessarily what kind of thinking is happening.It's not clear to me how you expect there to be a large amount of research about the functioning of a hormone, or series of hormones, or series of other unknown compounds, on a human brain. How would you expect that research to proceed? Studies on the chemistry of single neurons aren't going to be able to report the behavior you want to study. Studying people, you aren't going to find too many who are going to consent to invasive cranial surgery and at any rate, that's far too risky to be justified by the question.How do you expect to study the genetic development of the brain? And we don't even know that this is an issue of brain development or structure as determined by genes, but merely the introduction of a signalling hormone that causes the brain to dispose towards this behavior.Remember earlier when I faulted your criticisms because of your unrealistic expectations for research? This is what I was talking about. And remember when I accused you of conflating sexual and natural selection? This is what I was talking about. There is no "time frame" that this trait would have had to evolve under because the benefit is constant - greater access to healthy mates. That's never anything but a good thing.That's what I meant before when I criticized you for faulting scientists for failing to establish something that wasn't relevant in the first place. The time frame isn't relevant. I read through and I couldn't find this language that you're referring to. If you're going to assert that this is simply a physiological adaptation to environment, then the onus is on you to develop a model for how the brain learns that a certain odor is associated with symmetry, and that symmetry is a desirable trait. I can't think of any environment where a brain would be trained to do that; such training would proceed from trial and error, and that would require having children, and we see the same behavior in women regardless of their status as parents.So it seems to me that brain adaptation can be rejected from the data. The brain is promoting these behaviors absent any experience of its own that it should do so; clearly, it inherited this knowledge and genes are the mechanism of phenotypic inheritance. And from it, inferred "genes". He never saw a gene, or used the sort of flourescent markers we use today to identify genes; he never used PCR or the Southern Blot to examine the genetics of plants. He did it entirely from phenotype, as have these researchers. Now, naturally, we would prefer that the most definitive techniques be used whenever possible, but I don't see that they're possible in a lot of these cases. I think you're asking for an impractical level of rigor. The onus is still on you to show that a "signal" (the correlation), albiet a very weak one, detected several times through different kinds of "noise", is just a random coincidence or the result of an unknown factor. The methodology is sufficiently sound to me. If you're going to contend with the conclusion, you have to do it with evidence, not rhetoric.

So educate me. Inform me as to the specific techniques you would see applied. Link? Quote? Anything? I went back to your criticism and still couldn't find it. Certainly. But why would we have to know what that time frame was in order to substantiate the genetics?Honestly, Holmes, I've never ever heard of that as a requrement to establish genetic causation. You have heard of oncogenes, right? Such genes as BRCA1 and BRCA2? I've never, ever heard that they had to establish the time frame for the development of these genes in order to establish that they actually were genes. Not ever. That's nonsense. It would seem to me that they did show this. The behavior is likely hormonal; hormones are produced by genes; genes are the result of evolution. As we've established you've accepted all of these statements so the conclusion from them is pretty clear. Are we defending two different hypotheses? Here's what I maintain is confirmed by their paper:

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A previous study by the authors showed that the body scent of men who have greater body bilateral symmetry is rated as more attractive by normally ovulating (non-pill-using) women during the period of highest fertility based on day within the menstrualcycle. Women in low-fertility phases of the cycle and women using hormone-based contraceptives do not show this pattern. The current study replicated these findings with a larger sample and statistically controlled for men’s hygiene and other factors that were not controlled in the first study. The current study also examined women’s scent attractiveness to men and found no evidence that men prefer the scent of symmetric women.

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None of your criticisms of their methodology seem to undercut that hypothesis. I simply don't find your criticisms compelling. They're nonsense objections. And many have. These people are called "racists." Of course the difference is that ignorance and aggression are not traits that are known to have a reproductive advantage or be generally found attractive.In other words like most of your posts you draw a fallacious analogy. That's a fairly surprising thing for you to complain about, since personal insult is a regular feature of every single one of your posts. Indeed this very thread began with personal insults, where you accused your opponents of mental illness, as evidenced by the utter insanity of daring to disagree with the piercing intellect of Holmes. Nothing, to my mind. If you believe there's a mechanism whereby culture disemminates information about what individuals have the best natural smell, it's up to you to propose it. (And, no, scratch-and-sniff adds in Vogue don't count.) And I'm not inclined to simply dismiss the study because the researchers didn't spend millions to fly all around the world handing out t-shirts for people to smell. It's just another one of your nonsense objections that doesn't seem to recognize the reality that scientific research has to operate in.If another study shows that the correlative effect is the result of culture and not something else then I'll be happy to change my mind. But again, the onus is on you to support that position. It could be anything, Holmes. But you've already accepted that we employ Occam's Razor when the alternatives are less likely. The alternatives to their hypothesis are less likely. It's far less likely that these women's brains have "learned" to detect the best smell during ovulation; it's far less likely that culture has taught them to prize certain smells during their most fertile menstrual periods. Thus, those alternatives are rejected. If you believe that those alternatives are more likely then by all means share the data that leads you to believe that.But researchers are under no obligation to satisfy your nonsense game of "what-if". I see a paper that adequately controlled for the most obvious controllable factors, and one where other factors simply could not be controlled for within the scope of the research, and yet they got a data signal anyway. That's successful research in my book.

Well, here's an alternative consistent with their data - the CIA infiltrated the volunteer group and supplied them with in-ear radio devices so that CIA agents could tell them, according to a complicated math equation, exactly what responses to give the researchers.Entirely consistent with their data. And I notice reading through the study that they didn't check for any in-ear radio devices or perform the experiment in a Faraday cage to prevent the reception of radio signals.Is that another alternative that you would believe is equally likely? Cultural influences that we have absolutely no other evidence of? I'd say that's an "unneccesarily multiplied entity" along Occam's lines. And rejected by others. So I guess we're back where we started, eh? I don't believe that was their goal. Was it your intention to criticize them for failing to meet a goal that they did not have an intention to meet?The function of evolutionary psychology is not to develop a paleontological history of the development of the brain over time. Its to determine what aspects of human behavior are influenced by evolved genetic factors. We are done. I haven't seen you make a point yet that seems to accurately and realistically grapple with the methodology of the paper. Defending the papers presented by others is not something i intend to do, and if (as is your implication) Panksepp's article contains the same nonsense as you've been promulgating in your posts, there's nothing there to interest me, either.

I thought we were done. Guess not? No, they haven't. Phat's ridiculous idea is nothing more than conflating genetic fitness with "fitness" as defined by bodybuilding magazines. That you've rushed to his defense suggests the bankrupcy of your position. I haven't seen you offer any social learning hypotheses at all. If your posts so far are any indication they have no validity whatsoever. ...and then rebutted your arguments. I notice you left that part out. Now you're simply repeating your objections and repeating about how they're not nonsense, so, yeah, we're back where we started. Absolutely no progress.Like I said, I thought we were done. This is going to be my last go-around until you have something new. Seriously, Holmes. I have no patience for this game where you say the same thing two different ways and try to pretend that it's different each time. My knowledge was advanced. I can't speak for you. If it was already common knowledge that ovulating women prefer the smell of symmetrical men then I don't know why they did the study in the first place. You asked me to present a paper and then defend it. That's what I've been doing. Let the people who posted those other papers defend them.I don't care to. I picked the paper I thought I could defend, and that's what I've done. You disagree, of course, but not for any legitimate reason that I can see or that you've been able to articulate successfully. What does that have to do with anything? I presume that people would disagree with my analysis, too. Is it your understanding that everybody in science has to agree with each other?I would suggest that you cease trying to goad me into discussion. It's a form of ad hominem. Like I said this is my last go-around until you have something new. In this case? It's well-known that his criticisms were viewed by many to lack sufficient merit in regards to this field. SJG was a smart man but, again, science has room for people who disagree.

Present a serious argument and I'll take it seriously. Until then we're done.

But the testers were instructed to report the "pleasantness" of the smell and it's intensity. Weren't they? Wouldn't we see a corresponding decline in intensity if this phenomenon were operating?Do we, in the paper?Sorry but I don't see this as a counfounding effect. I don't see in the study any indication that the assymmetric individuals were missing armpits or anything like that. Moreover, the assumption that just the armpit is the relevant source of scent is unsupported on your part.Sorry Holmes but if that's the best you have, that's a remarkably specious objection.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 03-02-2006 09:48 AM

T-shirts cover more than just the armpits, and the armpits are not the sole source of body odors. We don't even know that this chemical is being secreted from the armpit or that it is concentrated there. I don't see that as a strong possibility, because the scent is related to gestational asymmetry due to environmental influences overcoming nonrobust genetics. I don't see differences in skin chemical production as inherently related to that. Just doesn't seem likely to me. I'd be happy to see whatever research you might have on the subject, but if we're just pitting speculation against speculation I don't see anything sufficiently compelling in yours to overturn the study in regards to its fairly limited conclusion. Wasn't it possible that the CIA infiltrated the study? The question, as we've agreed, is what's likely and I don't see that this is a likely confounding factor. Because it's as unlikely as my CIA example. It's not borne out by the data of the experiment which controlled for scent intensity. If you don't have any idea why I describe your objections the way that you do then you simply aren't reading my posts.

No, I meant nonrobust genetics. Why do you think I meant the opposite of what I said, out of curiosity? Why not? And your evidence for this?

I guess I wasn't clear; what I meant was that the genetics aren't robust because environment was able to overcome them. Which would seem to disprove your point. If amount of material was not related to attraction then the fact that an asymmetric individual wasn't putting out the same amount of material into a T-shirt wouldn't matter.Which is what I was saying in the first place.

Deeper and deeper. So you really believe these various ad hoc scenarios are a more likely explanation than the explanation given in the paper?

And I would say that the t-shirt covers exactly the areas that human beings seem to be concerned about in regards to scent production. Underarm deodorant is profligate; less so with groin deodorant. T-shirts cover a considerable amount of the human body.Moreover, they did wear this garmet to bed, where sheets and other bedclothes would have migrated scents from all over the body. It's not unrealistic to suggest that the T-shirt captured, to some degree, scents from all over the place. Do you have evidence of these variations? Is it known that chemical constitution by volume varies across the skin?Is there any evidence whatsoever that, at any time, a human body has compensated for asymmetry by increasing stink production at some other part of the body?You're heading off on a pretty extended analogy - the implication that, just because blind people learn to hear better or people without legs develop stronger arms, scent production will do the same thing doesn't seem warranted. It's a far greater unevidenced leap than you accuse the study of, which is again why I find your objections to be nonsense. It's fine for you to talk about "reality", but here's the thing. On your side you have your idle speculations, your philosophical musings, your unlikely alternate scenarios. On their side they have the results of an actual study that they did.Sorry, Holmes, but it's pretty clear which side here is on the side of reality, and which side is once again using philosophy to dismiss knowledge.

I'm sorry, what studies were those? If they were presented I missed them.

You know, I swear I read the article top to bottom, specifically the discussion sections at the end, and this is the second thing you've said about the article that I simply don't recognize. And looking back I can't find it now.Can you give citations for these things, or what? It's stopped being clear to me that we're even still talking about the same article. I thought Pars's link was the one that didn't work.Regardless, if you believe that a study has been presented that actually gives an evidentiary basis to your arguments, well, I've only been asking for that for 10 posts now. Could you cite something? I still don't know what studies you're talking about, Holmes. Citations? No, Holmes; but it's my understanding that they would do it with evidence and not with nonsense. If you have evidence that supports your speculations, this may be as much as the tenth time I've asked you to provide it.

I'm sorry Holmes but the idea that the time you spent thinking about it counts as evidence is ridiculous.Like I said we're done. You would have to actually have given me some information before you could give me more. Hand-waving implications of unspecified "studies" don't count as information. I have not ever called you a name in this thread. That is the tactic you rely on to conceal the lack of content in your posts; I have no need to do the same.