Evolutionary Psychology
pharyngula | July 17, 2016Back around the 11th of July, I saw a few comments by a guy named Myles Power, a science youtuber, who was quite irate that Rebecca Watson criticized evolutionary psychology five years ago. There were the usual vaguely horrified reactions implying how annoying it was that some mere communications major would criticize an established, credible, true science like EP, and how she was prioritizing entertainment over scientific validity (not all from this Power guy; Watson is a magnet for the same tiresome bozos making the same tiresome complaints). So I told him that no, her criticisms were not…
pharyngula | September 12, 2015I must have been taking a nap a couple of years ago. I just found this interesting discussion of EP by a psychologist, and I agree very much with it.
Evolutionary psychologists believe that the human mind works much like the body… that it is an information-processing system, with pre-specified psychological programs (or environmentally-triggered ones), adapted much like the rest of the body, to meet specific problems in our evolutionary past. Others, including myself, disagree with this definition of the human mind. While I would certainly agree that evolution had a profound role in shaping…
milhayser | December 4, 2014On Aardvarchaeology, Martin Rundkvist tells the story of a 14-year old Swedish Muslim girl who also happens to be very good at karate. Recently this young woman was disqualified from a tournament because she wears a veil and the rules state "that the umpire needs to be able to watch for damage to each contestant’s throat." She was also disqualified from solo performance, despite that lack of potential for neck damage. Martin writes, "Things are changing in the karate world. You couldn’t compete wearing any kind of veil until last year. When it became allowed, Iran’s women’s team immediately…
pharyngula | December 2, 2014Why, oh why, do EP's defenders rely on throwing up armies of straw men to slaughter? It's silly. Here's how he starts:
There are some science-friendly folk (including atheists) who simply dismiss the entire field of evolutionary psychology in humans, saying that its theoretical foundations are weak or nonexistent. I’ve always replied that that claim is bunk, for its “theoretical foundations” are simply the claim that our brains and behaviors, like our bodies, show features reflecting evolution in our ancestors.
Have you ever seen a critic of evolutionary psychology deny that we evolved, or…
pharyngula | September 5, 2014That's my hypothesis, and I'm sticking to it. My obnoxious, curmudgeonly ways must be an adaptation, selected by evolution over many generations to optimize my mating opportunities by forcing stupid people to flee from my presence.
Hey, that's as good as the explanation that PMS evolved to drive away infertile mates, don't you think? I wonder if I can get it published somewhere.
But no! Bethany Brookshire and Rebecca Watson have ruined it all for everyone by exposing the fallacious reasoning behind my argument! See, this is why everyone hates the uppity ladies.
pharyngula | July 14, 2014Dr Gijsbert Stoet thinks we should stop trying to correct gender disparities.
Speaking at the British Education Studies Association conference in Glasgow on Friday, he argued: "We need to have a national debate on why we find it so important to have equal numbers. Do we really care that only five per cent of the programmers are women?
"Well, actually, I don't care who programmes my computers. A wealthy, democratic society can afford to let people do what they want.
"What is better? To have 50 per cent of female engineers who do not really like their work but say, 'Yeah, well, I did it for the…
gregladen | February 28, 2014I will be giving a talk in Saint Paul, at the Best Western Kelly Inn, on Evolutionary Psychology.
The original plan was to get two people to debate the topic, but it was hard to find two people in town to do that. One idea was to get PZ Myers over here, and then he and I would debate the topic. Problem with that is that we probably agree a lot more than we disagree so that would be boring. Well, I'm sure we'd make it interesting but we'd have to switch topics.
So it ended up being me. There will be a debate. I'll handle both sides. Seriously.
I'd love to give you a working link to…
pharyngula | September 1, 2013I wish I knew what it was about the appeal of evolutionary psychology that makes otherwise intelligent people promote outright silliness in its defense, but here comes Jerry Coyne again in a poorly thought-out piece. He disagrees with the anti-EP piece I linked to yesterday, which is fine, but I expect better arguments than this. He completely mangles the story.
An example: he cites a section of Annalee Newitz's story like this, as the one substantive argument she presents against EP:
Humans evolve too fast to bear behavioral traces of ancient evolution.
I agree. That statement is total…
pharyngula | July 28, 2013I previously addressed the criticisms of my criticisms of evolutionary psychology by Jerry Coyne; Now I turn to the criticisms of my criticisms he solicited from Steven Pinker. This is getting a bit convoluted, so let me first state the basics.
I dislike evolutionary psychology. Pinker is an advocate for evolutionary psychology. What brought on this back-and-forth was that I was a member of a panel at a science fiction convention that discussed evo psych; I made a few brief comments on my blog that were capsule summaries of my discussion there. In the section below, the paragraphs preceded by…
gregladen | July 17, 2013There is now a video and a transcript of the Evolutionary Psychology Panel at CONvergence 2013. Many of you, when you watch this, will become enraged at things said by the panelists. Rumors of what was said had already been spread around on the internet and as I understand it Jerry Coyne and Stephen Pinker have already become enraged. Or maybe the loved it. I'm not sure.
If you want me to respond to any of your enraged rage regarding anything that was said, or for that matter, if you have anything at all ... negative, positive, informative, whatever ... to contribute to the conversation…
pharyngula | July 15, 2013I have disturbed and distressed Jerry Coyne, because I have dissed the entire field of evolutionary psychology. I find this very peculiar, because in my field, Jerry Coyne has a reputation for dissing all of evo devo, so it can't possibly be that we're supposed to automatically respect every broad scientific endeavor. There has to be something more to it than just an academic defense of a discipline. And there is, unfortunately. Here's his prelude.
I’ve been known for a while as a critic of evolutionary psychology, particularly when it first began as “sociobiology” in the Seventies. At that…
gregladen | June 8, 2013Geoffrey Miller, author of The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature, has made a goof.
Miller is an evolutionary psychologist with an interested in IQ, the usual sex related things Evolutionary Psychologists are interested in, etc. etc.
On June 2nd he wrote this tweet:
Dear obese PhD applicants: if you didn't have the willpower to stop eating carbsk, you won't have the willpower to do a dissertation #truth
The number of way in which this is wrong is myriad.
Anyway, he's in a heap of trouble. Here is a video from his university, the University of New Mexico,…
pharyngula | March 1, 2013Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic, that is. One of the common complaints about evolutionary psychology is that it claims to be addressing evolved human universals, but when you look at the data sets, they are almost always drawn from the same tiny pool of outliers, Western undergraduate students enrolled in psychology programs, and excessively extrapolated to be representative of Homo sapiens — when we're actually a very peculiar group.
How peculiar? A paper by Heinrich, Heine, and Norenzayan, "The Weirdest People in the World", tries to measure that…and by nearly every…
gregladen | February 27, 2013Humans appear to have a great deal of variation in sexual orientation, in what is often referred to as "gender" and in adult behavior generally. When convenient, people will point to "genes" as the "cause" of any particular subset of this diversity (or all of it). When convenient, people will point to "culture" as the "cause" of ... whatever. The "real" story is more complicated, less clear, and very interesting. And, starting now, I promise to stop using so many "scare" quotes.
Fixed up and reposted.
Prior to birth there are a number of factors than can influence things like gender or…
pharyngula | December 11, 2012
This is another addition to my αEP series about evolutionary psychology. Here's the first, and unfortunately there are several more to come.
By the way, people are wondering about the α in the title. Don't you people do any immunology? α is standard shorthand for "anti".
I mentioned in the last one this annoying tendency of too many pro-evolution people to cite "complexity" as a factor that supports the assertion of selection for a trait. Strangely, the intelligent design creationists also yell "Complexity!" at the drop of a hat, only it's to prove that evolution can't work.
They're both…
pharyngula | December 10, 2012This is another addition to my αEP series about evolutionary psychology. Here's the first, and unfortunately there are several more to come.
I have a real problem with evolutionary psychology, and it goes right to the root of the discipline: it's built on a flawed foundation. It relies on a naïve and simplistic understanding of how evolution works (a basic misconception that reminds me of another now-dead discipline, which I'll write about later) — it appeals to many people, though, because that misconception aligns nicely with the cartoon version of evolution in most people's heads, and it…
gregladen | December 10, 2012Darwinian Psychology, or really, any “Psychology” that claims to be science, will operate under the assumption that the human brain, as an organ, has arrived at its modern form through the process of evolution, which includes a certain amount of design through Natural Selection. It does not take that much additional sophistication to realize that the human brain is not only good at, but absolutely requires for typical functioning, a great deal of learning. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the typical human brain functions as it does because of information provided by the genes that…
gregladen | December 6, 2012Whinging About Skepchick
A critique of a talk by Rebecca Watson is very likely heavily influenced by the critiquer’s membership in one group or another as defined by The Great Sorting. This not because Rebecca is a polarizing person. It is because she has been outspoken on issues that tend to polarize people, like feminism. This polarization is enhanced by the fact that a break-off group of skeptics have chosen to join the haters rather than the thinkers and doers. Also, she leads a group of women who have tried to open up the Skeptical Community to having more female participants and to more…
pharyngula | December 5, 2012This is one of a series of posts I'm working on over the next few days to criticize evolutionary psychology. More will be coming under the label αEP!
Recently, Bob Costas, a sports announcer, spoke out about gun control. In reply, the right wing has been in a frenzy of denunciations — he should just shut up, he's not qualified to speak, he can't possibly have reasonable opinions about anything other than football (of course, these same angry commentators don't express similar opinions about Ted Nugent). It's called Shut Up and Sing Syndrome.
Named after a Laura Ingraham book and a 2006…
gregladen | December 3, 2012Rebecca Watson gave the following talk at Skeptcon. It is funny, well done, and critiques a Pop-Evol-Psy concept or two, which I have also addressed (Why Do Men Hunt and Women Shop?, Understanding Sex Differences in Humans: What do we learn from nature?, Falsehoods: Human Universals, A Tutorial in Human Behavioral Biology, Driving The Patriarchy: Demonic Males, Feminism, and Genetic Determinism, Race, Gender, IQ and Nature, What is the most important human adaptation?, How Do You Get Sexual Orientation and Gender in Humans?, Men = Testosterone Damaged Women!, Sex and Gender in An Odd…