In defence of Evolutionary Psychology

Just to let you know I am going to be busy with something today, and perhaps tomorrow... uh okay, part of it is that there is finally beautiful weather here and I am spending more of the day outside.In any case, I will definitely be responding to your OP. If not later today, then at the very latest on Friday. I do hope to have it by tonight.To clear up one thing in advance, I was not claiming that we learned everything and no psychological mechanisms (aka behaviors) were influenced or directed by genetics.The question I am raising is how much and indeed how that can be measured. I had already been downloading some of Pinker's material from his own webpage, so I'll have some amount of material to respond with.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Grrrrr, I wrote a response and it was eaten by the computer. I will try again but it will be briefer. I suppose that could be a good thing... Interestingly enough the article you cited illustrates a position that is extremely similar to my own position. I guess I may be a bit more "gloomy" than Dr Turkheimer, but we are generally saying the same thing.In fact I am a bit curious as to whether you read the article throroughly. It appears to not only back my own position, but rebut your own statements.Here are some key statements from Turkheimer... My own position is pretty much dead on to this. I am not claiming that there is no genetic input or drive within human behaviors or capabilities, just that it is so mixed with environmental inputs that it will be a near impossibility to qualify, much less quantify them in a scientific way.I do believe many behaviors are mainly the results of environmental effects on development, some of these "effects" being self-referential as when we force ourselves to experience things (like learning or practicing). He may be speaking of Pinker with this. In any case he seriously seems to be countering your own statements about the effects of families on children. The brain's ability to adapt to an environment, including mechanisms for adaptation, are certainly genetic in origin. Some of this will underlie human behaviors.This does not, however, limit the influence that environment can have on those drives and capabilities. In the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Oliver Sacks looks at several interesting neurological damage cases. It is an interesting read and reveals much of what is part of our genetic or hardwired capability to become who we are.One case is of a woman who never learned to use her hands due to pampering by her family and caretakers. The lack of learning was so accute that she could not even identify that she actually had hands. They appeared to be like lumps of clay to her.One instinctual drive is to explore with our hands and make a connection between hands and mind. Yet in this case environment robbed her of that instinct and thus action and so her hands. She was able to be "cured" when she was provided with an environment where those instincts and capabilities could come out. What's amazing is that she was finally able to realize she had hands and start using them when she was 60 years old. So genetic trait remained there but held in check 100% by environment for 60 years. I find such lists of "universals" to be pure speculation at best and fraudulent at worst. As it stands I could spot a couple non-universals on the list (before I stopped looking at the rest).Rather than these assertions of what can be found, I want to look at actual articles and research by which these claims can be made.In another thread I was prepared to discuss an article on incest aversion. Here is the article:Does morality have a biological basis? An empirical test of the factors governing moral sentiments relating to incest , Lieberman/Tooby/Cosmides, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. , published onlineIn that thread, the person I was debating was not familiar enough with it and so we changed to discuss another trait: the preference for specific waist-to-hip ratios (whr). This one might be easier to discuss as I actually have dissected it already and so you can see (and address) the problems I have with it.The article is:
The role of body weight, waist-to-hip ratio, and breast size in judgments of female attractiveness ,Sex Roles: A Journal of Research , August, 1998 by Adrian Furnham, Melanie Dias, Alastair McClellandMy post criticizing the article in depth may be found here.Please use either as an example of evo-psych research into supposed "universal" traits and their underlying genetic/evolutionary factor. If you have ever seen me refer to genetics and homosexuality, it was to criticize the notion of one being related to the other in any significant way. I believe homosexuality to be primarily an environmental issue, from growth/developmental issues to practical or "real world" pressures.I do believe genetics might play a slight role in a person's finding one sex more attractive than the other, but not enough to determine whether a person is homosexual or not.You may be confusing me with Rrhain. I believe he argues for genetic causation of homosexuality. I have not seen this, and neither has my gf who is in psychology. Please post something specific about it.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

The laws are meant in an ironic sense. He stated this. In fact he gave a warning... This began when you denied the effects of family on children, and made a quantitative statement about genetics on behavior. That is taking his "laws" literally.He is more on my side in that he is specifically downplaying science's ability to ever determine the very things that you, and people like Pinker are claiming. Evo Psych is very limited under this scheme. I don't think he was making a blanket claim that the shared environment could not deliver similarities in greater proportion to unique ones, just that it is unlikely to given that the number of unqiue environments will generally outnumber shared ones.My guess is he'd agree there'd be a greater degree of shared belief in Xianity in the texas home, but that that is not nearly the same thing as saying the set of all of the children's behaviors would be similar. The problem with psychologists is that they like to pretend that they are anthropologists or know better than anthropologists and sociologists. As you read some more background info on Evo Psych you may start discovering this for yourself.I have a background in Sociology, with an emphasis on cultures and cultural phenomena (if they hadn't dumped Anthro as a major I would have had a major in that). It was really really easy to spot non-universals.What's more, in order to expand the list it brought up really ridiculous points that are simply inherent to living in a human body. It does not require a genetic behavior hardwired into the brain for such things as "weaning", eventually the breasts will not produce milk and the child is likely to go on to other foods. It is a product of just plain living.That's about as brilliant as saying "usually have two foot or hand coverings".The list is also padded with repetitive issues, look at "classification" for example. Once we know that people classify things, what is the point of naming several sorts of classifying?Some are also so generic as to point to the falseness of Evo Psych. For example "childbirth customs". What exactly does that mean? Generally people have to do something when a child is being born. Often it is an exciting event (fear or joy). The only way Evo Psych would be right is not that there are childbirth customs, but there are SPECIFIC childbirth customs.Think about that very carefully because we are talking about genetic which mean that something was selected for (or not deselected) due to its ability to achieve a reproductive advantage. Thus it has to be something rather specific that can be selected. We should then see specific customs being wholly biological and following genes and not where one ends up living. That is NOT supported by evidence at all.That's about all I'm going to spend on that list, or such lists. I could go through it piece by piece but I really think it is up to any defender of that list to produce the actual data, and not simple lists.Here are a list of some non-universals: males dominate public/political realm, males more prone to theft, mother normally has consort during child-rearing years, murder proscribed, cooking, copulation normally conducted in privacy, distinguishing right and wrong...Oh that's enough, really, I just can't stomach this tripe. You know what really had me laughing? Within that list of "univerals" where they already include the caveats "normally" which indicated that they are not in fact "universal", one of the "universals" is: cultural variability!I'm lucky I could get past "containers" as a "universal". As a scientific enterprise, the problems are these:1) Behavior is left ill-defined. While there are certainly hardwired capabilities of the brain, there is an open equivocation between physical brain mechanism (like cognitive or motor capability) and personal action (such as "monogamy").2) The only things which can be selected for are those that are hardwired in by genetics. Thus one must first understand which are hardwired from birth, and which have developed from simply existing and using the brain's adaptive capability to deal with environments. The latter phenomena cannot be selected for. We do not have sufficient understanding of this, and Evo Psych as a field has rejected this method as too slow (to which I say "too bad").3) If one can find certain gene coded brain functions it will still be near impossible to figure out what reason (advantage) that function was selected. Evo Psych actually uses speculated evolutionary advantages to argue that therefore a function was selected for that reason. The only valid path is to have the understanding mentioned in point #2 and then apply that same level of understanding back through animals which mirror the evolutionary path humans took. Even that would not be perfect, but at least has some shot of reasonable speculation for any brain function.Evo Psych is not an inherently botched idea. Obviously evolution has driven brains along a route of greater data assessment and capability to adapt to the environment. Thus some portions of capability and perhaps even behavior are hardwired in our genes. Where Evo Psych as a field derailed, is in believing we could pursue it by abandoning the rigors of scientific method.Its only hope as a field lies in neurology, and comparative neurology.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Are you serious? This is much worse than PCKB. You don't announce you have some new scientific field that has all this great evidence, give a list and when someone questions the list argue that the questioner is merely asserting something.Your list is the assertion, not my question of that list. You presented it, I have said that I know some of them are not universals. It is your duty to back up your claim, not mine.But just so's you don't go away thinking I'm trying to dodge:1) I have already noted that some of these include the caveat "normally". Look at them again. When they say "normally" that intrinsically means NOT "universally". I mean think about it. It is universal that people normally do something? Duh.Can we guess where they don't "normally" do something? When the culture or family environment has a different practice... or maybe even just a single individual. Thus the reason it is "normal" is just that it is popular, perhaps the cultures being farther spread or in more powerful positions to affect other cultures.2) I have already pointed out that one of the universals is "cultural variability". That intrinsically means that the one thing which is universal is that VERY FEW THINGS ARE GENETICALLY UNIVERSAL.3) Beyond those two obvious points I have already made which are NOT assertions, but points of fact, I will give as an example murder, cooking, and distinguishing right and wrong.Murder: I might first ask what the author means by "murder" as that itself is a social construct. There have been cultures which did not have concepts that killing was "wrong" or to be differentiated based on reason for the killing. Yes, people would not like a killing and take revenge, but it was not a procription of murder as usually the result were more killings. You could have sanctions of killing of certain members, but again the sanction was not on killing but of any harm to certain members.If you want to find out more, read up on the Yanomama tribes, Aztec and Inca cultures, Sparta (specifically its relation to helots), Carthaginian culture, Feudal Japan, and even Canaan/Phoenicia. I'm sure there are more I am forgetting, but one was really enough.Cooking: Again I would ask what this author means by "cooking". It certainly has become common to heat many foods, or prepare them in some way of mixing ingredients. But is this "universal" or in such a way as to suggest in any capacity that it is a result of a genetic "behavior"? Hardly. While people have a drive to eat, they are not driven to prepare tasty meals. They will eat as they need or desire, and when it is as they desire it will be up to social custom.Show me a starving person that refuses a banana or a steady diet of uncooked/unprepared foods because that person has an urge to only eat something cooked and with BBQ sauce on it, and maybe I'll start buying into that theory.Humans even have the capacity to reject necessities of eating based on social custom/belief. Other than primitive tribes which naturally eat simple roots and fruits and things (like many Polynesian cultures did), you might check out info on Vegans and Jainists.Cooking is popular and a norm... not a universal.Distinguishing Right and Wrong: The best this can be boiled down to is people have likes and dislikes. Yes all humans... universal except in brain damaged individuals... have preferences. As far as elevating these tastes (which are the result of genetic disposition and environmental exposure) to moral "right" and "wrong", that is false on its face.There are many cultures, mainly in the past of course before monotheism caught on, which operated on virtues and did not use concepts of R/W as we do today. You can check up on Pagan Scandinavian cultures, Ancient Greek culture, Feudal Japan and to some extent China.Personally I do not use a "right" and "wrong" moral system. It is artificial and as far as I can tell wholly unnatural to the human condition. It is however very popular due to its spread by the sword under the monotheistic traditions. I got my system because R/W systems did not feel right to me and I devised a system using stuff obtained from writings in those other cultures.Had enough?This message has been edited by holmes, 06-24-2005 12:00 PM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

The paper was suggested by an evolutionary psychologist as a research paper in evo psych. Have you gone looking for evo psych papers? I've read a number and they usually go like the one reviewed.If you have an example of one that actually tests something, though some do a better job than this one, feel free to bring one up.I know shooting down one article does not bring down all of a field. But I have asked for the best of evo psych and none I have seen get much better than that. This is similar to the times I have asked IDists for papers and refute them. Is it wrong for me to do that? I read the entire paper before going back and writing my criticism. I am showing that the tone of the paper is antisociological, as is most evo psych literature. It is as antagonistic toward sociology as ID is to evolution. There commentary is hyperbolic and suggests a bias on their side, not mine. Only the hypothesis should grow from inductive reasoning and not deductive. I was pointing out the deductive nature of their reasoning. It creates a circular relationship which results in a "test" in how to read data to fit the hypothesis, rather than check the data to see if a hypothesis is confirmed. Did you miss my addition "at least not with beauty"? No, actually it is not. They are assuming something which is that our sense of beauty is hinged on something from our animal past, by which I mean mainly instinctual past, which may be inaccurate for humans. Thus finding a possible correlation is useless. Maybe you are missing my point, because it strikes on several levels. Such studies are errant because they cannot necessarily locate what is adaptive vs evolved, when an evolved trait might have happened, and what that evolved trait was meant to "solve". I was attacking the third problem with alternatives. I forget if this was the paper that specifically called anthropologists names. The majority of papers I have read do deny the influence of culture, past adding a slight flavor to whatever our inate Psych Mechs have us doing. You severely missed my point on that. I was suggesting that primitive man may have not had the same preferences as those who live today, or have lived for some time. Thus their preference may have had nothing to do with whrs, though today there is a whr preference and that can be linked to potential fertility issues. I am not against the idea that our brains are the product of evolution, and thus all of its basic functions, and at least some of our behaviors have been effected (driven) by evolution. Indeed investigations into this would be fascinating.My problem is with "evolutionary psychology" which is a field of study proposed and kept going by people who are not actually investigating the above question.To properly do research would take into account neurology and comparative nuerology. Modern Evo Psych proponents dismiss those investigations as needlessly hampering the pursuit of answers and so propose that correlation studies matching behaviors to speculated advantages are enough.This paper was offered as an example of evo psych methodology and is an example of methodology. If you just had a problem with that methodology then my guess is you are on your way to joining my side.I started completely neutral, though somewhat excited by the prospect, of this field. What I read shocked and repulsed me as a scientist, just as it did Gould whose paper rejecting Evo Psych I pretty well agree with.This is a methodological issue, not a general idea issue, though it certainly might look that way when I am having to reject every big "idea" they pronounce as supported.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

That is interesting but hardly of worth. Reading the review pretty well described a guy like Behe, Wells etc etc who step out of their field to make bold statements which are controversial. The only thing with Brown then is that he was not a psychologist and so created the list from the wrong direction, hoping there was a connection, rather than a psychologist going the other way.In this case I am shocked that a anthrologist could assemble such a fanciful list, unless it was a joke. Really the fact that he had "cultural variability" was a gem. That defense, though probably true regarding his meaning, does not save him. The idea that universally people "normally" have sex in private, or are raised by their biological mother, or have suitors during their child bearing years are removed by clear contrary examples...Numerous cultures had sex in the open because their was no private areas to speak of, or actually had group sexual events. I forget if it was the Polynesians or Aboriginals that trained children in sexual acts publicly. Sparta and certain other communal or polygamous cultures certainly did NOT have their children raised by the biological mother. Even Plato in the Republic suggested cultures have communaly raised children. The Oneida (as one example) allowed suitors specifically outside of child bearing years. They believed sex for reproduction was not healthy for the woman and so the woman chose the father during her CB years, and outside of that was free for other suitors. That is not to mention more patriarchal societies or those that had prostitution as part of their religious life. Whoops, I meant to say "or" not "and". My suggestion is that there were several organic reasons people will wean their children. It will happen universally because it MUST happen universally, physically.The moment when will be based partly on culture and partly on personal reasons. A child's getting teeth that cut in a lot can be one definite incentive. That's when the child may want other foods, or the mother feels it is time to start giving them other foods because they are physically ready. Nice defense, but the list doesn't seem to suggest that kind of difference is what is driving the separate classifications. The list looks padded to me.heheheh... padding is a universal. Childbirth happens and force people to do something, even doing nothing would be considered the "childbirth custom" if that is what most people in a culture chose to do. Thus the "universal" of childbrith customs is ridiculous. It is as good as food chewing customs.The only way that an evolutionary aspect could be indicated is by a universal custom, thus that everybody does the exact same things in some instinctual way. That would indicate a genetically selected behavior regarding an event. Imprinting is real and demonstrable. I have yet to see anything on that level, or suggested to be on that level, by anything coming out of evo psych.They are working with correlation studies. But some did not have concepts that it was "wrong" to kill. Some had only the idea that one shouldn't because I am allied to that person. That is totally different.If we are going to water the definition of "murder" as far as you are proposing, then the universal becomes people don't like it when someone they like is killed. Wow. No offense, but weren't you originally asking me to make a deduction specifically from that list? That certainly is how your post read. If not I probably wouldn't have bothered reading the list. I guess its fine if you don't believe me, but then why go on to ask a question?Here is a simple answer to your simple question: It is illegal for you to rape someone. Morally it is defined by the situation but in no case will it be "right" or "wrong". It certainly could be againts principles you espouse or commitments you have made, and thus internally wrong for you.Personally, I would find it objectionable (distasteful) except for some situations. But that is my nature. In most cases rape is sort of cowardly and unjust. I define myself as being brave and just so that would rub me intuitively the wrong way. However I could not say it is okay or not okay for you to rape anyone. Moral "right" and "wrong" systems, are different than moral virtue systems. You are correct that cultures generally take one or the other or a combo of the two. But what they don't have as a universal is the concept of RIGHT and WRONG.There is a recent thread on this I can provide a link to if you want. I posted some citations to Wikipedia articles on the distinction between the systems. Before the rise of monotheism, there was mainly virtue systems that simply did not use right and wrong the way we commonly view it today.Again, you can decide not to believe me if you want, but I am telling you the truth. The best I can get for "wrong" is internally inconsistent, or I don't like it. None of which is a moral statement. I will usually define an action morally based on its virtue, which indicates where it will fit (or not fit) with my own character. It could be perfect for you however and so ok for you.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

An anti EvoPsych comment of mine in the Coffee House has generated interest in this topic, and here is one that was left hanging.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)