Hi, Glen
I said I would be slow in responding. True to my word. I agree with you that Cosmides and Tooby are among the most interesting manifestations of the Evolutionary Psychology ... movement, fad, whatever. Their strongest "suit" was their attack on "Darwinian Psychology" which consists of picking out some trait valued by the author and his graduate students and making an argument that that trait exists because it is favored by natural selection. C. and T. reminded us that no trait that came into being by selection should be expected to be favorably selected in the current environment. However, they are. are, unfortunately, the worst sort of mentalists, people who think that brain research is going to save us from the absurdities of causal mentalism. I agree also that some of the most interesting manifestations of evolutionary thought with respect to humans have come from Evolutionary Medicine. Pregnancy sickness is a good example; I suspect food finickiness in little kids is another. "Croupy" crying in babies might be a third. I have always been interested in the argument that so-called "insecure" attachment in children is not a pathology but an alternative pathway adapted for (selected in?) the excruciatingly narrow "bottleneck" that human populations came through 1 to 200 thousand years ago. I have argued myself that road rage is a form of altruism, in which the rager risks his own life to enforce a social norm. I apologize for the length of MY DESCENT and for the poor quality of the Xerox. It doesn't surprise me that the main point didn't come through. I think Evolutionary Psychology does provide testable hypotheses, but I also think testability is not sufficient to make a hypothesis heuristic. The hypothesis also has to be interesting. To be interesting, a hypothesis has to challenge some way of thinking that has become second nature, and good EP thought sometimes produces such surprising challenges. Such interesting challenges do not arise from studies designed to bolster social stereotypes with biological bafflegab. Here is another paper <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247372033_Oh_no_Not_social_Darwinism_again> much shorter (only 600 wds) and better Xeroxed, which exemplifies my contempt for this latter sort of evolutionary psychology. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of u?l? ? Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2018 12:24 PM To: FriAM <friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology? Having skimmed your paper, I think the wikipedia quote is adequate and more appropriate simply because it's shorter: >From ><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_evolutionary_psychology#Testability> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_evolutionary_psychology#Testability > Leda Cosmides argued in an interview: > > "Those who have a professional knowledge of evolutionary biology know > that it is not possible to cook up after the fact explanations of just any > trait. There are important constraints on evolutionary explanation. More to > the point, every decent evolutionary explanation has testable predictions > about the design of the trait. For example, the hypothesis that pregnancy > sickness is a byproduct of prenatal hormones predicts different patterns of > food aversions than the hypothesis that it is an adaptation that evolved to > protect the fetus from pathogens and plant toxins in food at the point in > embryogenesis when the fetus is most vulnerable – during the first trimester. > Evolutionary hypotheses – whether generated to discover a new trait or to > explain one that is already known – carry predictions about the nature of > that trait. The alternative – having no hypothesis about adaptive function – > carries no predictions whatsoever. So which is the more constrained and sober > scientific approach?" Given that, we can move back to Jordan Peterson and ask: Are there any testable hypotheses for this "alpha male" concept Peterson peddles to his "masculinity" fanboys? On 02/14/2018 10:48 AM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Once the two extreme positions have been set aside, we are left in the > messy middle. > > > > */Under what circumstances and in which domains does knowledge of > human evolutionary history have anything to contribute to our > understanding of contemporary human behavior? /* > > > > I would love to have a sustained, thoughtful discussion of this > question on this list. It is very close to my heart. Because I > don’t have time, right now, to write a screed, or even a rant, I > shall fall back on that practice favored by all academic scoundrels: > I shall cite one of my own papers. > <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302220782_My_Descent_from_th > e_Monkey> (If this link doesn’t work, could somebody let me know, > please?) -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
